It was a complete mess. Actually, it always had been, now it was even more so. Trapped in one of the main citadels, Sailent Stalker, she paced back and forth trying to regain some control of the situation.

  In just a few days, they had gone from having a clear advantage in conquering Ariel's Tomb to being steps away from being part of a dead continent. With a great demon and a great titan getting closer and closer to them.

  That's not to mention the cursed skinwalker Weake of the Ruin brought to the waking world. It seemed like her name had finally been served justice. She couldn't return to one of her sisters, no, instead, she had to bring back a supernatural horror that lurked beneath the dead.

  Now she was the only Saint of Song on the continent, hoping that somehow her sisters Seishan and Beast Master would return safe and sound; because that pce wouldn't st much longer.

  “Oh, Mother, please, let them return alive and… above all, remain themselves.”

  Her thoughts were interrupted when a soldier rushed in. Looking at his worried face, Stalker could only frown. This was another of her problems.

  “Saint Stalker, we've completely lost contact with the northern fortress. Our advance teams say the battle is over… and the others are now dispersing.”

  “Order them to return quietly. Close the walls and prevent any other humans from entering the fortresses. Use the information you've gathered to work with the worthy bcksmiths to devise a way to detect them.”

  “But my dy, the survivors who escaped the city…”

  “We have no choice. Right now, one mistake means millions more of those things. Do you think we can take that risk?”

  “N-no, my apologies. I will act immediately.”

  That was her new problem, now that Weake of the Ruin had perished, and the leadership of the government had fallen into the hands of the cns. That news would have been pleasant enough in the past, but at that moment, when only Saint Tyris and she were capable of taking the lead, she could only try to control her headache. At least the Saint of Valor was reasonable. If she had stayed stranded on that nd with Anvil's brother... she didn't want to even imagine it.

  She was struggling with a million threats slipping through her fingers like sand. She was just buying time, she knew. But she had to hold on until her sisters returned or her mother finally decided to make a move.

  She could feel it, rumbling in her blood. Her mother would act soon, and hopefully, that would be the end of this string of nightmares.

  “Excuse me,” Sailent Stalker blinked in bewilderment. Was that soldier still there? She must be more tired than she thought.

  “What’s going on?”

  “There’s been some strange news.”

  “Strange? There are literally a million strange things. Be clear,” she raised her voice irritably.

  The soldier, to his credit, just shrank in pce. “There are reports of an ascended warrior hunting the skinwalker’s vessels around the fallen city. Both awakened and ascended.”

  The saint’s eyes widened in surprise. Those damned creatures were extremely dangerous. Even if they only inhabited mundane bodies, they could be a challenge for some ascended. What kind of master would go hunting such creatures of their own volition?

  “Give me more details. Could it be one of the masters of valor or from the House of Night?”

  She would have liked to believe it was one of her cn members, but the fact that the soldier hadn't mentioned it already gave a clue that it wouldn't be so fortuitous. Still, if there was an ascended one out there with the ability to confront and eliminate more than one of those creatures, it meant that either he had found a weakness or his appearance was a counter to that creature's nature. Either option would be incredibly beneficial.

  "It doesn't look like it. In fact, we're not even sure it's human."

  "...What do you mean?"

  "At first gnce, she appears to be a fairly tall ascended woman. She wears full bck body armor and a demon mask with three horns. Her sword seems to be made from living scraps, and she wields it as if it were part of her." The soldier took a moment to breathe, as if shuddering at the memory. “But that’s where the simirities end. She doesn’t speak, doesn’t really make a sound. Her aura and strength aren’t what any master should possess. But most of all, the shadows seem to follow her. Wherever she goes, they gather and join her.”

  “That just sounds like a pretty powerful ascended. Still, don’t go overboard with Valor’s style, even in that armor. Could he be a secret son of Night? Never mind, have they made contact? Do they know where he is now?”

  “Our soldiers tried to start a conversation… as bad an idea as it seemed at the time, but when they got closer, it simply vanished.”

  “Disappeared?” She was momentarily puzzled.

  “Yes, she vanished into thin air. This happened several more times, with different groups miles apart. All within minutes of each other.”

  A teleportation aspect? That could be really useful, but… where had such a guy come from?

  “As for the trackers,” the soldier began, “they can't find her. It's as if she doesn't exist.”

  The saint's mind began to race. The fact that such an individual had appeared right now seemed too suspicious to ignore; something in her intuition told her it was important. Unfortunately, she didn't have time for it. She would let her cn members take care of bringing her to her and Mother. In the meantime, there wasn't much she could do.

  “Stay alert. If anyone manages to make contact, make sure—”

  His words were cut short when an arm went off throughout the base. Instantly, the soldier's eyes widened in horror, but when he opened his mouth to speak, Sailent Stalker had already disappeared.

  …

  Outside the facility, buildings colpsed like sandcastles. The screams of panic were only surpassed by the outbreak of fighting. Near the heart of the city, where the st refugees had been cared for, a tidal wave of chaos was unleashed.

  Soldiers and Awakened members of Song fought in groups against the civilians. But no normal civilian could send a military truck flying. No mundane human could regenerate their severed arm. Instead, only one expnation could be given: that thing had arrived.

  In one particur group, an Ascended named Morrow fought alongside her court of six Awakened to eliminate the only Awakened skinwalker who had entered the city. This was a member of Valor she herself had faced in the past. If not for that, she might have ignored him and allowed him to sneak into the city.

  Sadly, it seemed the vessel also noticed their failure to infiltrate, causing a battle to erupt in the midst of the group of civilians. Even worse, those who died near the starting area didn't stay down; instead, they soon rose up to spread their infection.

  “Demons, demons, why don't you just fall?”

  Her sword had ripped through the creature's neck. It had pierced its limbs, blown its head off with its appearance; and had even tried to knock it out. Still, the strange being just kept getting up, kept smiling that unnerving smile of its own, calmly waiting for her to make a mistake.

  Then it finally happened. A careless moment, a moment too te, and the vessel's cw was inches away from tearing its head off, but it didn't; instead, it was the vessel's body that exploded into motes of blood.

  The ascended Morrow whipped her head around, staring in bewilderment and fanatical joy at the tempting figure of Beast Master. She had returned.

  “My dy…”

  The saint didn't pause to answer; instead, with a grim face, she moved like a blur through the crowd, slicing in half anyone who wasn't human. Only a few seconds passed, but by the time Morrow's breathing had evened, the pza had returned to a deathly silence.

  Beast Master stood in the center of the pza, staring down at the pile of bodies strewn on the ground. His frown only seemed to deepen with each passing moment.

  "My dy."

  "Morrow... it's good you're still alive. I need you to move and pass a message to all the ascended in the city."

  She nodded purely reflexively. Here was their princess, a saint, someone who could confront the horrors gathering outside and now within the walls. Then, perhaps, she allowed herself to believe, there would be hope that everything could be better.

  It was that relief that distracted her, that certainty that made her move a moment too slowly. But above all, it was the fact that the attack came from one of her own comrades.

  With a twisted smile, a proud warrior of Song attacked. It wasn't an action filled with hatred, nor with joy; it was so natural that the Saint barely registered the action before the creature's palm could reach her.

  But contrary to the situation, she seemed calm. Was it because she was a Saint and the other a mere Awakened One? No, while she could have moved, she decided not to for one simple reason: she didn't need to.

  With a crash, the Awakened One's entire body was crushed under the cws of a rge panther. Filled with fury, she tore at the garment with palpable rage until the creature could no longer regenerate.

  Then everything fell silent again, with the two Saints staring at each other with joy overshadowed by exhaustion.

  The relief she felt at reuniting with the beautiful Saint faded into a feeling of suspicion. How many more had been changed? How long before he woke up and his friends were no longer her friends?

  Could anything really get better?