A ringing silence was all she could hear. She woke up to the smell of gritty dust and the salty taste of blood.

Her head bled heavily and she could not see in her left eye. Luna was pinned by a large section of the collapsed wall. She roared as she managed to lift it through the pain. Luna ignored all her injuries and staggered to Elizabeth’s room. The whole floor was completely destroyed. Everything in her eyes was a blur. All she could see was a pinhole ahead. Luna bumped into someone, but she did not stop. Her progress was non-existent as she was not even sure if she was moving.

Luna stopped to align herself. She leaned on a destroyed wall and smeared her blood on its surface. As she limped forward, some of her vision returned. She passed by some rooms where there were patients and nurses, dazed, injured, and screamed for help.

Yet the area where Elizabeth’s room was located seemed to be undamaged by the explosion. Luna opened the door and found the window was broken into and Elizabeth had been taken. The room was covered with bits of blood and fur on the floor and walls. Gerwulf was on the floor, with a pool of blood around her head.

"Mother!"

Luna rushed to check if she was still alive. She found Gerwulf was still breathing, but her face was visibly struck by something blunt. A large wound on her head was where the blood came from. As Luna prepared to carry Gerwulf, the blood all over the walls and floors began to move.

The blood slowly crept down from the walls and ceiling. Steadily, it crawled into one spot until it formed a big, blood-red, gelatin-like blob with the eyes of different animals and numerous sharp little teeth. The blob creature began to crawl towards Luna. Shiny appeared underneath the bed. The ball of light shivered but approached her and rubbed itself all over Luna. The blob attached itself to her hand and crawled up her body. It attached to her arm and stayed there as its little eyes watched her. She carefully picked up Gerwulf and she ran to find help.

Every floor of the hospital was ruined. The stairwells were packed with panicked, injured or even dead patients and medical staff. Luna asked anyone wearing a medical uniform for help, but they could not even help themselves. She passed by some nurses who were maimed by the attack. Some were cradling the bodies of their dead colleagues.

She had to shove and push her way down, but Luna was incredibly careful to protect Gerwulf. When she got to the ground floor, it was chaos. Debris, dust, and death filled the wide atrium. She could see people screaming, but she did not hear what was going on as the ringing in her ears still hasn’t stopped.

Luna saw Syndicate members with guns checking everyone, with some helping nurses evacuate patients outside. Solomon’s female knights carried people and put them into stretchers. Max’s guild members lifted a concrete pillar to rescue civilians. She stopped in the middle of the destroyed atrium.

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"Help! Someone! Anyone! Help!" Luna yelled out.

But no one could help her. She passed by some corpses on the floor while even the nurses themselves were covered with injuries. A gunshot rang in the air somewhere in the floor, and Luna could see that the syndicate enforcers had shot someone. Then she saw Solomon as he towered over the crowd, His always pristine white suit tarnished with soot and dust.

“Luna! Luna!” he yelled when he saw her.

"Solomon! Mother needs help!"

"You heard her! Help her! Now!" Solomon’s voice boomed so loudly it seemed to shake the building. Nurses who were injured as well rushed to help Luna as they got a stretcher and took Gerwulf.

"Luna! Solomon!"

Baldric, Tinkerton-G, Ada, Sylvie and Annie emerged, and they were all covered in dust as well. Baldric’s head was bleeding and he had a massive burn on his back that tore through his coat. Sylvie and Ada’s armor was cracked and Annie was the only one without injuries.

"Thank the maker you are alright!"

"Solomon they took Elizabeth!"

"What?!"

“Lord Solomon!” Shinaki appeared, also covered with blood and dust. She assisted Max, who was also covered with dust and clearly had his arms and legs broken and dislocated.

"Max!" Annie, Luna and Baldric rushed to take Max who had now fallen unconscious.

"Get me more nurses here now!" Solomon bellowed. Wounded nurses and members of his guild arrived and placed Max in a stretcher.

"Solomon how did they get close?!" Luna asked as they looked at the chaotic atrium.

"It was a late warning. Before the explosions, Filias warned me that some nurses were compromised. We were here for too long that an attack was imminent, but I did not anticipate it at this scale."

"Lord Solomon!" A syndicate enforcer ran up to all of them. "We caught one! We caught one of them!"

All of them followed the enforcer, which led them outside, where five of Solomon’s men and two female eastern knights had managed to capture one of the bombers, and they were prying open his mouth to pull out a tooth. When Solomon’s men threw out the false tooth, Luna stepped on it, which caused the liquid inside to fizz and sizzle.

"Baldric! I want you to make him sing!" Solomon roared.

"My pleasure." Baldric approached the bomber and whispered in the man’s ear. In less than twenty seconds, the man who had a hardened look on his face suddenly panicked.

"I’ll talk! I’ll talk! I’ll tell you everything!" The man said as sweat beads formed on his forehead.

"Where is the princess?!" Baldric choked the bomber.

"I don’t know. We were all given different orders. Some were told to set the explosives to act as a distraction while another team was supposed to abduct the princess."

"Where is your rendezvous point then?" Solomon said.

"It’s different for each team, but all team leaders were asked to report to a warehouse near the coast line. Once we get there, we are said to meet at the docklands afterwards but not to go there at once to prevent being followed."

"Who sent you? The bounty hunters? The syndicate? Silvus?" Baldric choked him harder.

"A company hired us, Chimera Trading Company."

"What did you say?" Luna said as everyone looked at her.

"Chimera Tradi-"

The bomber did not finish as she savagely kicked the man in the jaw, knocking him out.