“…”

Looking around, they had indeed found themselves in a small storage room, filled with various tools and different paraphernalia of different shapes and sizes, all arranged neatly in separate categories.

“Hm,” Dauma audibly sniffed as he picked up one of the objects close to him, a statuette of a female figure, before getting a good look at it.

A surprising majority of the objects around them had the exact same design, either presented as an illustration or a carving. It also reminded him a little of Anten, even though its facial features and outfit were clearly different.

Creepy… seems like a bit much for a church too.

“Oi, devil!”

“What?”

“I found clothes,” Blake spoke from the other end of the room as he held up a set of white robes, triumphantly showing it off to him, “we should change.”

“Yeah,” Dauma simply remarked as he placed down the strange statuette, walked over, and took them without question before promptly trying them on.

They turned out to be a much more difficult fit than he expected, as the robes, quite unlike the shawls that Kara had specifically made to fit all sizes, were not suited to his actual size.

The area around the chest was way too tight, and the overall length was simply too short for him. Watching as the fabric strained around his body, he could immediately tell that one sudden movement from him would easily tear it apart into tiny shreds.

“I guess there’s no point in me wearing these anyway, I stick out like a sore thumb regardless,” he remarked as he eventually gave up and took it off, folding it as neatly as he could before placing them on the side.

“They don’t make them where you’re from, do you? Hmm?” he could hear Blake tease behind him, with a noticeable swishing sound indicating that he had almost finished trying the robes on himself.

“Just forget it.”

“Hey, devil! How do I look?”

“I don’t care,” he replied, but regardless, he still turned around to look at him.

“Ooh, a vintage knife! Wonder if it’s still sharp!”

As he listened to him talk loudly and excitedly about the various antique weapons in the room, Dauma felt his eyes drift lazily away to the side as he continued to chide him.

“Can you keep it down? Also, don’t you have enough—”

He stopped as his eyes moved back to the entrance of the room, to the door they had just entered from. The door that was now currently wide open, and the white-robed young man standing right beside it, having just entered.

“…”

“…”

As the two of them stared silently at each other for a few agonizing moments, Blake had also noticed him, and very quickly, his face began to twist into a look of disgust.

“Fuck…”

OUTPUT: 10%

“Y… you…”

The man opened his mouth and attempted to speak, but he seemed to be completely paralyzed with fear as his gaze remained fixed on Dauma for plainly obvious reasons.

Seeing him completely frozen and unmoving, Dauma stayed still as well and, placing a finger up to his mouth, he began to speak calmly and slowly to try and defuse the situation.

“Listen, we don’t want any trouble… just forget you saw us…”

“I… I…”

“Walk away… we don’t want to have to hurt you if we don’t need to.”

“I… I need to call the guards!”

“No!”

Dauma began to run, but Blake had already thrown the knife in his hand towards the unarmed man before he had even finished his sentence.

“Gack!”

The blade, while an antique, was still surprisingly sharp, and added with the combined force of Blake’s increased raw strength, it passed right through the man’s neck before slamming deep into the wall behind him.

In a few seconds, it was already over for him. He choked and sputtered on his own blood, unable to shout or say anything more than soft gurgles, before he collapsed to the floor into a pool of red.

“…”

“Close and lock the door, quickly. We don’t want any more incidents.”

As the two of them watched the life slowly drain out of the man, Blake cleared his throat before whispering to Dauma in a casual tone, having already moved on from his deed.

“… what the hell did you do?” Dauma hissed back at him, even though he still followed the suggestion without any objection.

“We have to do what we need to, like you said,” Blake replied as he walked over to the man and used his foot to poke at his twitching body, checking for any adverse or strong reaction.

“Blake, keep in mind that we’re trying to be sneaky, under your suggestion. I don’t think this is going to help us in any way.”

“Just help me with the fucking body, devil.”

“…”

Without any further talk, the two got to work shifting the body to a much more discreet corner of the room, far away from the door. However, the red bloodstains were much more difficult to clean up.

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“Aw, great. I got blood on my stuff. Thanks a lot, fucking guy,” Blake grumbled as he casually ripped off the robes he had just put on before nonchalantly wiping his stained hands on it.

“…”

“Hey,” he snapped as Dauma stayed quiet, “don’t tell me you feel sad for him. It was either him or us. Be thankful it wasn’t us.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“I can see it in your devil eyes,” he insisted, remaining adamant.

“Whatever.”

“Anyway,” he continued as he indifferently tossed aside the stained, torn robes, “we need to leave as soon as we can. There’s no telling how many friends the guy had.”

“Still just making it up as you go along, huh?”

“Yup.”

Dauma sighed as he watched him smile crazily before walking over to the locked door and pressing his ear against it, listening for any noise outside before coming up with their next move.

“You know, Blake—”

“CRASH!”

A sudden loud noise, sounding much like a shelf crashing close to them, interrupted Dauma, and their heads instinctively turned towards the source at onces.

“What…”

As soon as the two of them saw what had made the noise, they paused again, staring at it, or rather him, in surprise.

The noise had come from the corner they were just at. The concealed corner where they had placed the Church follower’s dead, bloody body in.

“… uuu…”

Except he did not seem to be dead anymore.

“The fuck!?”

The gaping wound left in his throat was still there, leaving him still unable to say anything except grunt and utter other unidentifiable noises. The bloodstains on his white robe still remained visible and were even drying up at this point.

And yet, even though they were sure he was dead or at least close to death, he had stood up on his own two feet. The light in his eyes, or rather the freakishly white, pupilless patches that had replaced them was still alive, and he was still breathing, despite his breaths coming out as heavy wheezes and gasps.

What the hell.

Blake slowly stood up, his hand reaching out to grab anything within his reach as soon as possible, as the three of them stared at each other all over again.

How?

It was supposed to be physiologically impossible. By all means, him being alive was breaking the rules of human biology, and the open wound in his neck proved that they had indeed dealt a killing blow to him.

But now, he was not only showing he was alive, but he also seemed to be doing fine even after that grievous injury. There was simply no logical explanation at all for his recovery.

“… nghhh...”

“Suuuuuuu…”

Dauma had been prepared to respond to the sudden development, but he abruptly stopped as he watched the living dead man take in a slow breath, his chest rising outwards, before holding it in and staying still.

“Wait.”

It suddenly became clear to everyone what was going to happen. Ignoring everything else, he took a chance and attempted to reason with him again, hoping to get him to stop doing what he believed he was about to do.

Unfortunately, there was just no room for talking anymore. There were only pure bottled-up emotions of fear and hatred left in the undead man, and it was ready to explode.

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!”

“Fucking hell!”

As the man began screaming as loudly as he could, Blake quickly responded and began throwing the closest items he could find at him to disrupt his attempt at getting attention from the outside.

At the same time, Dauma had already rushed in, his fiery sword immediately slicing down in the direction of the man’s body. At that point, he knew he had to disregard any precautions or worries. All that mattered now was to silence him as soon as possible.

Come on!

With one easy swing, he cut through the torso and diagonally continued all the way down until it exited through the side, instantly splitting him into two burning halves.

He’s dead now, he has to be.

But nothing changed.

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

He watched in slight shock as the man’s top half did not fall to the ground. In fact, even though he could still see the deep cut and the fiery burns, both halves stayed on, as though they had not just been completely separated.

And above all else, he was continuing to scream at the top of his lungs, seemingly unfazed by his attack. At some point, his damaged vocal cords suddenly became fixed, allowing him to go to full capacity and his voice became much clearer.

“Damn it!”

Running out of objects to throw at him, Blake hurriedly rushed over to his bag to grab a weapon, while at the same time, having no further options, Dauma lunged towards the man again, quickly tackling him down to the ground.

Stop… stop… stop!

The man did not flinch or dodge his tackle, but as Dauma covered his mouth, he began to wildly squirm and move, his arms flailing around and attempting to punch his sides, while his legs kicked all over the place uncontrollably.

“Be quiet!” Dauma whispered to him, but the muffled screams and punches continued without fail, unwilling to stop.

“Stand back, devil!”

Upon hearing the shout from behind, he released his grip on the man and stepped back as Blake went in, this time with one of his personal knives.

“You can… shut… the… fuck… up… now!” he yelled as he positioned himself over the body and promptly began stabbing him in the face and head several times, emphasizing each word in his sentence with each stab.

“AAaAaAAAaaaaaa…”

At last, all the shouting ceased, and the man stopped fighting back. His head was now simply an unrecognizable pile of mush, his features completely erased by the stabbing.

“…”

The scene was all too familiar for Dauma to look at as Blake stood back up, panting as he wiped his knife. The act of killing something in such a gruesome and bloody way again made the devil scowl in slight disgust, but he knew it had to be done, so he refrained from making any further comments.

“We’ve wasted too much time here taking care of this fucker,” Blake remarked as he finished his quick clean-up, deciding not to bother with the stains on his clothes this time, “we need to go, now.”

“… and where do we intend to go?”

“Anywhere but here! Hurry the fuck up, devil!”

There was no place in the storage room for them to hide now that their location had been screamed out for everyone to hear, so Blake quickly packed his bag before checking the door again.

“… shit.”

However, even though he was not listening at the door, even Dauma could hear the noises outside at this point. It was too late for the both of them to sneak out. There were people speaking and more troublingly weapons cocking, too pronounced to be mistaken by them.

OUTPUT: 40%

“Get rea—”

“BOOM!”

Before Blake could finish his sentence, the wall closest to him exploded, pushing him slightly backwards and forcing him to shield himself from the flying debris.

“Hostiles sighted. Do not engage yet.”

When the smoke cleared and the ringing noise faded from their ears, what greeted the both of them were not people dressed in the same white robes as the dead man or the female guard.

They were intimidating figures at first sight as they immediately surrounded and pointed shotguns and rifles at the both of them.

Dressed in what looked like heavy armor suits, with solid metal plates attached on their arms and legs, the seemingly protective layer stretched all the way up to their heads, making them look incredibly bulky and powerful, not to mention very secure.

However, the helmets on their heads were most definitely the freakiest part of the outfit for any normal person. Completely covering their faces and garbling their voices, they were blank for the most part and, combined with the metallic shiny finish of the unknown material used to make it, reflected any present light like mirrors, letting the person on the other end see their own reflections.

To complete the creepy design, the fronts of the helmets were all painted with a large blue eye in the center, open and unmoving, relentlessly giving anyone the impression that they were being stared at.

Altogether, this made them appear as people that no one who was sane would even dare to mess with. An elite force of soldiers, known only by the name of the group they belonged to and the fearsome reputation that came with it.

“Goddamn Enforcers!” Blake swore with deep rage, having recognized them immediately as he clenched his fists.

Dauma said nothing. Even as he did not know who they were, he already knew that they were not going to get away from them easily without a violent fight.

“What’s your command, commander?” one of the armored soldiers turned to another standing in the middle of the group and inquired.

“We follow the same orders as we’ve been given,” the one in the middle responded in a husky female voice, “leave the devil. Kill the other.”

“Roger.”

In the blink of an eye, the group quickly pointed all their weapons towards Blake, cocking and readying them without wasting any time.

“Fuck!”

Blake, who had remained still and ready to defend himself the whole time, barely had any time to swear once more before they all pulled the trigger together, and the Enforcers mercilessly fired their bullets at him.

“BANG! BANG! BANG!”

…

…

The next day, the news that there had been intruders in the compound was broken to every single Church member before the morning prayer.

Even though there were not a lot of details about it that were given out to them, the sheer magnitude of the situation caused rumors to spread rapidly like wildfire, with many of them speculating who the intruders were and what had happened to them.

At the same time, there were many reactions to the incident, a wide variety of them in particular, among them.

For some, they were scared and panicking, fearing that there could be a repeat incident that could likely involve them in the future. For others, they just did not care, and instead focused on the more important things such as the upcoming second trial.

“Dauma… Mister Blake…”

“… no way…”

And for two girls, they not only already had a good idea on who the perpetrators might have been, but they also could not believe it had happened.

It was simply all too sudden for anyone to process it.