The tavern was a fading glow behind me as I slipped into the tall, swaying grass of the plains. I moved like a predator, my single green eye scanning the horizon for any lingering travelers or knight patrols. I crouched low behind a cluster of dense, thorny bushes, the silence of the midnight air only broken by the distant howl of a mountain wolf.
"No guards in sight, Eirene. Prepare for takeoff." Plasma said
I waited until the world felt truly empty. Then, I let the shawl fall.
With a sickening, wet sound of tearing air, my Blood Wings erupted from my back. They pulsed with a rhythmic, crimson light, my blood ichor hardening into sharp, hardened blood of feathers. I felt the surge of power, the bounty hunter in my chest finally finding its release.
I didn't just jump, instead I launched onto the hill like a landing zone.
The ground shattered beneath my boots as I took off. The wind became a roar in my ears, and within seconds, the tavern was nothing more than a speck of light in a sea of ink. I flapped the heavy, powerful wings, each stroke driving me higher into the thinning air.
The midnight sky makes it a stealth mission, several guards that were guarding the perimeter were mistaken me as a pterodactyl or any other winged creatures, but I hid between the clouds of the midnight sky, hoping to not get caught by a small detail of my face.
I banked toward the Caria Mountains. Up here, the moonlight was blindingly silver, reflecting off my crimson wings like a herald of death. Below me, the jagged peaks and bottomless crevasses that would have claimed any other climber were nothing but a dark, undulating carpet of stone.
My green eye tracked the landscape below, searching for the green flash the journal mentioned. The higher altitude made my missing arm throb and my glasgow smile sting in the freezing cold, but the adrenaline of the hunt kept me focused.
I wasn't just flying, I was a falling star of blood. As I crested the highest peak, the Ruins of Oakhaven came into view in the valley beyond, a skeletal remains of a village swallowed by the plains. Somewhere down there, in the silence of the impaled gardens, Cameron Gal was resting.
I folded my wings tight against my body and began a silent, high-velocity dive. The S-rank bounty hunter was no longer a myth in a newspaper, I was the shadow descending upon the masterpiece of pain.
"Huh? Eirene, this ruins of this was some sort of a village. Several burned houses and jagged buildings, interesting?"
The ruins of Oakhaven were a graveyard of charcoal and bone. As my boots touched the ashy soil, the silence was heavy, smelling of ancient fire and rot. Much like Plasma had mentioned.
According to the Registry of the Condemned, this wasn't just a site of a battle, it was Cameron Gal's canvas. The charred remains of the huts looked like skeletal fingers reaching out of the earth. I can smell what he did to this peaceful place.
I moved like a ghost, my Blood Wings retracting into my back with a soft, liquid hiss as I slipped into the shadow of a half-collapsed granary. I used my heat signatures to track living creatures from a distance, I can sense the presence of monsters for a mile away.
I felt it before I saw it, a heavy, rhythmic vibration in the ground. I pressed my back against the soot-covered stone and peeked around the edge.
There, lumbering through the center of the village, were Cyclops.
Cyclops were high-level beasts that are usually found in mountains, it's excepitional cause was from the Rebelbub Village. These weren't the typical wild beasts found in the high peaks. Their massive, muscular frames were draped in rusted chains, and their singular, hulking eyes weren't the usual dull yellow. Instead, they glowed with a sickly, pulsating purple light.
While hiding between the boulders of the ruined mess, I used inspect to view the cyclops stats.
Cyclops (hypnotized)
Skills: Devil Contact (Strength)
Vitality: 1000
Strength: 3400
Defense: 2100
Agility: 1400
Mana: 2000
As expected, the cyclops was hypnotized by the same hypnotic magic that Alistair used in the Rebelbub Incident, it seems that it is freshly hypnotized, judging from their purple eyes.
My grip tightened on the edge of the stone. These monsters hadn't wandered here, they were being kept. The purple glow was a clear sign of high-level mental manipulation or a dark knight's authority. Cameron Gal wasn't just hiding here, he had turned the site of his massacre into a fortified kennel.
I scanned the perimeter. No sight of the green-haired knight. No signs of the black-and-crimson armor of the Immoral Knights. Just the hollowed-out village and these hypnotized titans standing guard over the ashes.
The fuel in my chest hummed. If the master wasn't in the garden, he was likely in the center of the ruins, perhaps in the old manor house or the town square where the slaughter reached its peak. But to get there, I would have to deal with the sentries.
I stayed low, my single green eye tracking the movement of the nearest Cyclops. I didn't want to make a scene yet, but if Cameron Gal was using these beasts as a warning system, I needed to silence them before they could let out a roar that would alert the entire valley.
I reached out with my one hand, feeling the blood in my veins respond to my will. As it did, Plasma warned me in a loud voice echoed through my face.
"Eirene, watch out!"
Suddenly, the boulder wall beside me exploded into shrapnel as a massive boulder slammed into it. I rolled through the ash, my green eye wide. I was hidden in the deepest shadows, my presence suppressed and yet the Cyclops had turned with mechanical precision and launched their attack.
There was only one explanation: they weren't using their own eyes.
I ignored the smaller shadows of cyclops scurrying through the debris and looked up, scanning the ridgeline that overlooked the ruins. There, silhouetted against the silver moon, stood a human figure. It wasn't the slim frame or green hair of Cameron Gal. This was someone else, a woman draped in the dark, jagged cloak of the Immoral Knights. Her hands were raised, glowing with the same sickly purple light that infected the Cyclops' eyes.
She was the puppeteer.
She was the source, in fact, the same thing I remembered from Alistair's hypnotic magic, the purple mana imbued into her hands flashed through my memories, the same gesture that Alistair took me hostage, I knew she was clever, I needed to act fast.
Ignoring the cyclops throwing boulders at me, I unbuttoned my dark cloak and unfurled my blood wings over a distance, even at a farther distance, I can still hear her response.
"Wha-What the!? Wings?"
The moment she saw my Blood Wings unfurl, her composure shattered. She realized she wasn't hunting a stray adventurer, but an S-rank threat. She turned on her heel and began to flee higher into the mountain crags, her hypnotic link likely barking a final, desperate command to her beasts.
"Protect me! You cyclops, don't just stand there scratching your balls."
She gave a silent order, then I flapped my wings, the crimson feathers cutting through the air as I launched toward her. I was focused entirely on the source of the magic, my eyes locked on the dark cloak disappearing into the rocks.
"Eirene, behind you."
CRACK.
A second boulder, thrown with the force of a siege engine by the lead Cyclops, caught me mid-air. I hadn't accounted for the beast's predictive aim under her direct control. The impact was like being hit by a falling building. The stone smashed into my side, sending a jolt of white-hot pain through my ribs and snapping one of my wing's primary arcs.
I directly used my pain manipulation to ease the pain beforehand, I was barely recovered and my ribs were shattered on the impact, I was wasting time, I needed to catch that immoral knight once and for all.
I tumbled out of the sky, the world spinning in a blur of gray ash and purple light. I hit the ground hard, skidding through the ruins of a burned-out hut.
I groaned, my face gritting against the taste of dirt and copper. My wing twitched, the blood ichor struggling to reform the shattered structure. The Cyclops loomed over me, shadow falling across my body as it raised a massive, tree-trunk club for the final blow.
I looked up, my green eye glowing with a sudden, feral heat. I had been careless, distracted by the puppeteer. But pain was an old friend, and blood was my greatest ally. The woman was getting away, and these beasts were standing between me and my lead on Cameron Gal.
It was time to stop flying and start reaping.
As I stood up, the cyclops approached me at full speed and kicked my whole body on the impact, I was barely recovered from the boulder's impact, the same strength that Dominik punch me through my solar plexus, and it is worse than that.
The impact of the Cyclops' kick was a dull, sickening thud that sent my world into a tailspin. I crashed through the rotting timber of a farmhouse, the structure collapsing inward. Bricks and charred beams buried me, and for a moment, the only sound was the frantic thumping of my heart and the snap of my own ribs.
I lay in the debris, my single green eye staring at the soot-covered ceiling. Pain was just information, and right now, my body was telling me I was broken. But a bounty hunter doesn't die so easily.
I let out a silent, ragged breath. It was time to stop holding back.
"Eirene, use your blood manipulation. Let the games started."
As from Plasma's response, I completely forgot I have blood manipulation, the ability to shape objects with my own blood, I acquired it when I reached my fifth evolution of my blood curse. It was easy to master because molding any kind of shape was a thing from my blood curse.
I reached deep into the core of my magic. From the stump of my left shoulder, hot, crimson ichor began to pour, not as a wound, but as a command. The blood swirled and solidified, weaving into the shape of a muscular, translucent prosthetic arm made of concentrated S-rank blood. I flexed the new fingers, the red glass-like surface shimmering in the moonlight.
It was better than the prosthetic arm that Lord Phillip gave me during my time in Town Allure, instead of that, weak and easily-to-shatter metal of my past prosthetic arm, my arm molded from my own blood is more stronger and tougher, I can felt that my pseudo-nerves were connecting from my left arm.
With both hands now available, I clapped them together. My blood responded, flowing out and hardening into a massive, jagged blood bow,
I stood up from the wreckage, a terrifying silhouette of red and black. I didn't have time to dance with these beasts. I pulled the string back, the blood-tendrils groaning under the tension, and formed a bolt of pure, solidified energy.
thwip, thwip, thwip.
I didn't aim for their hearts. I aimed for their only source of light. Three arrows of blood whistled through the air, striking with surgical precision. The purple-glowing eyes of the Cyclops erupted in sprays of gore. The giants let out earth-shaking bellows of agony, dropping their clubs to claw at their blinded faces. They weren't dead, but they were useless, stumbling over ruins, howling into a world they could no longer see.
As the blood-bow dissolved back into my skin, the Lifesteal enchantment kicked in. I felt a surge of warmth as the life-force of the blinded giants was funneled back into me. My shattered ribs knit together with an audible pop, and my wing's structure reinforced itself, glowing a vibrant, healthy crimson.
I didn't wait for them to recover. I turned my gaze toward the mountainside where the woman's purple trail was fading.
"You aren't getting away," I thought
I launched myself into the air, the wind catching my fully restored wings. The Cyclops threw boulders blindly into the dark, the stones crashing harmlessly behind me as I surged upward. I was no longer the wounded girl in the ruins. I was the S-rank hunter, and the puppeteer had just run out of strings.