“Ugh,” Lilian groaned. Stretched out before her was a seemingly endless grassland with a thick layer of mist covering it.

The mist wasn’t dense enough for visibility to be completely lowered, but it was still enough to make her feel queasy.

“Perhaps there’s a detour?” she questioned, her cool exterior was starting to crumble and nervousness could be detected in her tone.

“Quit complaining,” Tear snapped. “We just need to put up a high-level protective barrier of magic so that whatever’s here won’t get one of us.”

“Even if it did, we’re strong enough to escape. Just use the communication crystal Lord Erebus supplied us with,” Vyne continued.

Lilian slouched slightly, her ears drooping.

“Eh, no. We’re all going to get Spirited Away,” Erebus said suddenly, he had been ignoring their conversation until now.

Everyone froze and turned towards him slowly. “What?”

“We’re going to get Spirited Away,” he repeated. “It sounds pretty fun, doesn’t it?”

Huh? In what way does being whisked away sound fun?

“How are all of us going to get Spirited Away?” Weryn asked, instantly getting over the fact Erebus was suggesting such an outrageous thing.

“Eh... ah... um,” Erebus laughed and scratched his head carelessly. He had no idea how they would all get taken away.

Everyone stared at him.

“Well, you know?” He continued to scratch the back of his head. His signature expression on his face as he laughed lightly,“Haha.”

Weryn narrowed his eyes. “So basically, you don’t know?”

In his eyes, Erebus’ value was rapidly plummeting! Sure, he was strong, but this man was unbearably irresponsible and lazy.

No longer was he an object worthy of admiration.

“It’ll work because Lord Erebus wishes for it to,” Tear said in an extremely confident tone. Her irrational logic at its best!

All of the others nodded their heads. To them, it made perfect sense and there was no need for them to worry.

“To the [Spirited Away Grassland]!” they shouted and headed into the misty area with a doubtful Weryn following them.

This plan was full of holes. “Who knew we would get Spirited Away? If we did, would we even be in the Lower Continent? What if we all got separated, where would we even meet up? How would we know which direction we were headed?” Weryn shot questions at them, but they were ignored.

How could the kid be the most responsible one out of them?

He wanted to go back home. Please, give him another mentor! This one gave him shitty life advice and put his life in danger way too many times.

Erebus was humming a tune under his breath as they progressed through the mist and tall, damp grass.

“How long does this grassland stretch out for?” Vyne asked.

“No idea,” the others responded.

They were trying to remember the direction they should head towards in order to get to their destination. What was it again? Southwest? But which way was southwest?

“Where are we?” Lilian questioned after more walking, she let go of Weryn’s hand to cross her arms. They were heading straight, probably. Maybe they should’ve brought a compass, too. Suddenly, Weryn’s words were starting to make sense in their minds.

Erebus scratched his head and looked around. “Uh...”

Everything looked the exact same, they had been moving in a straight line. Still, it was confusing. The mist seemed to have grown thicker and now everything was a white haze, the ground they walked on was no longer visible.

It was hard to tell where they were going... in fact, which way did they enter from again? It was like walking with your eyes closed, your sense of direction was completely thrown off.

It was eerily silent as the mist rolled and moved about.

“Is everyone here?” Erebus asked. “Spot check, Vyne!”

“Here.”

“Lilian.”

“Here.”

“Tear.”

“Here.”

“Weryn.”

Silence.

“Weryn?”

Everyone’s eyes widened.

The one person that absolutely couldn’t get taken without the others had been taken!

“Lilian, weren’t you watching him?”

The beastwoman sniffed. She had unconsciously let go of his hand. The kid rarely spoke anyway, so it was easy for her to forget about his existence.

To her, anyone other than Lord Erebus was completely irrelevant.

“Someone get taken, quick!” Erebus demanded. Unreasonable! They had no idea how to get taken.

Oh no, what if they never found him?

He could imagine Ayirn descending upon him. Not only Ayirn but the entire Council.

“Hey, hey, creature! Take us, too! Hurry up. Come on, I don’t want to die. I’m still so young,” Erebus yelled loudly in the mist.

The others started joining in. Yelling at whatever was spriting people away to hurry up and take them. Did it want to die, huh? They’d kill it if it didn’t hurry up and come! They’ll destroy this damn grassland!

Threats! They were threatening it.

Pure desperation.

Their shouts were cut off suddenly and the four bodies disappeared from where they were standing.

The world seems to flash before their eyes and then the four find themselves inside a cave with a large pool of glimmering water in the middle of it.

“Ah, you’re late,” a familiar voice said and everyone turned their heads to see Weryn laying out casually on the rock with his feet in the pool of water. He looked completely normal and perturbed the entire problem.

He quickly assimilated into this situation!

“Annoying... so loud. So rowdy! What do you want? Who volunteers to be taken? Huh? What’s with that!” a voice wailed and everyone turned their heads to the incoming silhouette.

It was a translucent pale woman with long, inky hair that floated and twisted in the air. She wore a flowing white dress that had ribbons that intertwined themselves with her silky hair. She would be beautiful if it wasn’t for her gaunt, ghastly face and her red-orange eyes sunken in her face, they were red and puffy like she had spent the entire night crying.

Her thin lips were pulled into a frown as she levitated in the air, drawing towards the quintet.

“A banshee,” Erebus said. “A rather saddened one.” He tilted his head and stared at her.

The banshee drew to a halt in front of them, a sad smile spreading on her face. “Indeed, I am banshee who lost her way centuries ago.”

“You’re the one kidnapping the people?” Lilian asked her without any hesitation.

The banshee blinked in surprise then nodded her head. “I grew lonely by myself, so I took people to accompany me. They were angered by it! Many tried to kill me,” she wept, tears started flowing down her cheeks. “I just wanted to be with others! I was tired of the death. But I had to kill them in order to defend myself... I am so sad... oh, I am so sad.”

No one responded.

“Were you the one who created this mist?”

She shook her head. “The mist itself is a living creature that settled here, it is my friend. It takes the people and brings them to me.” Her smile grew wider. “It is very kin--”

In the middle of her speech, her mouth tore open, stretching all the way to her ears. Inside were sharp teeth that looked like they could tear and rip flesh like nothing. She let out an inhuman screech that made everyone cover their ears at its loudness and high pitch.

The cave seemed to shake as she screamed.

“Sorry about that, happens sometimes even when I don’t want it to. Anyway, as I was saying the mist is very kind to me.”

Erebus unplugged his ears. “Is that so? Well, this is unexpectedly boring and dull. We’ll be taking our leave, how do we get out of here?”

“I’m sorry. The only way to leave this place is by your death or my death,” the banshee answered immediately. “And the only way to kill a banshee is...” She saw the unmerciful stares directed at her. “I will not tell you that.”

Vyne nodded his head. “Lord Erebus, the way to kill a banshee is by tearing out their hearts and freezing it.”

The power of a sadistic demon! One of his experiments was a banshee and he had accidentally killed it that way.

He had heard they were impossible to kill, but the others had been doing it the wrong way! They had wrongly thought that a banshee was killed similar to how you kill a vampire. By either stabbing it with a stake through the heart, tearing off the head and burning it, or tearing out the heart and burning it.

Vyne bore a proud expression.

“Allow me to handle this,” Vyne said. He did not want his lord to soil his hands with such filthy blood.

The blood of a mongrel, Vyne drew out his weapon. The banshee began to float backwards, an expression of unfiltered horror on her face.