Graham and Luuk were on their way home and the street around them was very quiet. There were currently on Tuinstraat North and it was already past ten and most people had gone home. The only ones left in the street were rushing to get to the comfort and warmth of their houses, away from the cold night outside.

There were walking quickly with Luuk at the front past rows of houses and trees. The street lights illuminated their paths ahead, and coupled with the bright moonlight and the lights from the houses, it made the street bright enough for Luuk not to activate his night vision.

"Help!!! Somebody please!!"

Suddenly there was a distress call from a distance, about two hundred meters ahead of them. It was the voice of a man, and judging by the desperation in the tone, the situation was quite dangerous. Graham and Luuk hurried to the source of the voice, but since Luuk was much faster, he arrived ahead of Graham.

"Aarghh!!"

Luuk stayed at a safe distance from the source of the voice but in a position where he could clearly observe what was happening. In front of him, there was a man being mauled by a black and skinny humanoid creature with an elongated jaw. Near the man, there was the body of a woman lying motionlessly on the pavement. Her left half had been torn badly and there was blood everywhere.

"It hurts! Get away from me!! Aaargh!!!"

He didn't dare to do anything because he didn't know what the creature was. He could only wait for Graham and saw the man being killed right in front of him. He desperately wanted to help but his survival is still the most important; he couldn't play hero right now.

The man died quickly after and the creature started eating his dead body, munching loudly with its sharp teeth. Graham arrived not long after and quickly regrouped with Luuk, who was hiding behind a parked motor carriage.

"What the hell is that?" asked Luuk whisperingly.

The creature was eating under the street light, so Graham had enough lighting to see its full appearance. He knew what it was right away.

"That's a ghoul. It's a good thing you didn't charge ahead," he whispered to Luuk.

Graham took the revolver out of the holster that he concealed under his coat. He had also brought all the bullets that he had in case of something like this. He didn't bring the Barong talismans, however, because according to Cadhla, they were only effective against Leyak or creatures of the same origin.

Graham gestured at Luuk and they both approached the ghoul cautiously. Their plan was to take control of the ghoul and shoot it with the blood bullet, which should be effective because, according to the ancient book, it had a weakness against blood attacks.

Luuk went ahead of Graham to act as a decoy. Just as he stepped closer to the creature, it raised its head and looked straight at Luuk with bloodshot eyes.

"Growl!!"

The ghoul let out an intimidating cry and charged at Luuk with frightening speed.

"I, in the name of the Deity of the Tongue, order you to stop moving!"

The ghoul stopped in its track while its eyes were still staring ravenously at Luuk. Had Graham been a millisecond slower, the creature would have been chewing on Luuk right now. He needed to act quickly because the ghoul could start moving at any moment.

Bang!

Graham shot the ghoul right in the head and sent it flying back with the impact. The blood bullet was lodged in its head and numerous veins quickly came gushing out of it, enveloping the ghoul. Shortly after, blood burst out of the vein and engulfed the ghoul's whole body with a loud sizzle. Thin lines of smoke could be seen rising from its skin.

"Growl!!"

The ghoul was not dead yet. It became enraged and quickly stood back up.

"One bullet is not enough. Crap!" Graham cursed under his breath.

Graham looked at Luuk and the latter nodded. He understood that Graham wanted to use the same tactic that they used the last time when they were fighting against the rat-snake creature which turned out to be called Colocolo according to the ancient book. In terms of strength, a ghoul should be weaker than a Colocolo, and they had something it was weak against, so they had a chance of winning.

Just as the ghoul was charging at Graham, Luuk quickly chanted.

"I, in the name of the Deity of Theft, declare your intention to attack Graham Hymes mine!"

The ghoul stopped for a second as if it forgot what it was doing. Luuk quickly dashed towards it and stabbed it with his knife that he was holding in his left hand while his right hand clenched tightly in a fist.

His knife only managed to lightly injure the ghoul's abdomen and he quickly pulled it out and retreated. The wound that he created secreted blood that quickly covered it and the wound rapidly healed. Without Jacco's War Drum, his attack power was not as strong. The ghoul looked at Luuk and opened its mouth to attack him.

"Growl!!"

Suddenly, the ghoul felt a strong intention to attack Graham instead just as he was centimeters in front of Luuk, so he changed the target and darted with a terrifying speed at Graham, who was standing farther behind from Luuk's position.

Bang!

Graham quickly pulled the trigger and hit the ghoul again, sending it flying back several meters. Had Luuk not attracted its attention before, Graham wouldn't have been able to shoot it in time because it was much faster than before. The same thing happened again where the blood engulfed the creature and made a loud sizzle, but it was still not enough to kill it.

"Growl!!!"

The ghoul raised both of its hands and a dark haze came out of its body, quickly spreading to the surrounding area. Graham and Luuk felt a sense of foreboding from the aura, so tried to get away from it quickly, but they weren't fast enough. The haze had spread far and wide.

Suddenly, Graham felt that his throat was very itchy and his nose became full of mucus.

"Cough! Cough!"

He started coughing violently.

"This haze makes you sick!" he shouted, but it was too late. Luuk had already started sneezing.

Chomp!

The common illness that had affected them made it harder to focus, so neither Graham nor Luuk had the chance to control the ghoul. It had successfully injured Graham's left shoulder with its sharp teeth, creating a deep wound on it. His coat was torn and blood dripped from the wound.

"Crap!" he cursed, and then started chanting, while Luuk distracted the ghoul with his knife.

"I, in the name of the Deity of the Tongue, order my wound to heal quickly!"

His voice was carried by the night breeze and the wound on his left shoulder healed rapidly. He had expended a lot of stamina to force heal his wound, so he felt a little weaker now, especially because Jacco's War Drum wasn't available, so his stamina got no boost.

The ghoul seized its chance and tried to attack Graham again, but this time Luuk had enough time to steal its attacking intention.

"I, in the name of the Deity of Theft, declare your intention to attack Graham Hymes mine!"

He kept his right hand in a fist while watching the ghoul stopped in confusion. He really wanted to sneeze but he held it back as best as he could.

"Cough! Cough!"

Graham kept coughing violently, which made it difficult for him to aim. The ghoul had now developed a new intention of attacking and quickly ran towards his direction with its hooves.

"I, in the name of the Deity of the Tongue, order you to stop moving!"

Graham made it in time. The ghoul was standing only several centimeters in front of him and stopped moving involuntarily. However, he knew that his Order would only last a couple of seconds against this strong enemy, so he quickly aimed and shot it in the head.

Bang!

The bullet made yet another hole in its head and sent it flying back. It was lying on the ground and blood veins quickly entangled the ghoul's body. From the blood veins, dark red blood burst out and covered the ghoul and slowly melted it. This time, the ghoul didn't come back standing up but slowly melted into a pool of blood. It was totally dead.

Pant... pant...

Graham was out of breath. He rested for a while watching the haze getting thinner before completely disappearing with the ghoul's death. On the spot where the ghoul's body had been, there was now a peculiar round object that looked like flesh compressed into a sphere.

He noticed the visible bloodstain on his coat, so he had to remove it to avoid attracting unwanted attention.

"I, in the name of the Deity of the Tongue, order the blood on my coat to go away!"

With that, the blood that had coagulated and stuck to his coat became liquid again and dripped to the ground, but he quickly put a cloth in the way to prevent that much blood from splattering all over the pavement; it would arouse suspicion if there was that much blood rather far from where the bodies were. After that, he gestured at Luuk to pick up the object while he quickly sat on the ground with his back leaning against a tree. He quickly ordered himself to sleep.

"I, in the name of the Deity of the Tongue, order myself to fall asleep!"

With his chanting done, he suddenly felt very sleepy and fell asleep only within seconds. Not long after, Valentine woke up and stood up. He took out his knife and made a little incision on his palm to collect a little bit of blood.

"I, in the name of the Deity of Secrets, offer this blood as a medium,"

The blood in his hand emitted a mysterious yellowish mist just as he finished saying the first part of the chant.

"For I declare this place under the Shroud of Secrecy hereafter!"

He dropped the blood to the soil under the tree close to where the man and woman had died. His anti-divination was in place now, so anything related to his and his ally's activities there shouldn't be divinable.

Luuk, who had picked up the compressed flesh that felt soft and wet to touch, approached Valentine and handed the object to him. He knew he would get his share, so he wasn't worried. Valentine received the round object the size of his palm and stuffed it inside his pocket.

Suddenly, the two of them felt a heavy sense of danger, similar to the one they felt from the mysterious man after they had killed a Tiyanak. It was a very suffocating feeling and they knew they wouldn't be able to survive if they stayed around longer, so they quickly ran away from the place.

They didn't run towards their home because if the source of danger gave chase, they would know where Valentine and Luuk lived, and it would be very dangerous for them, so they went west, towards the busier street where there should still be a lot of people at that hour.

"Who dared killed my master's creation?!"

There was a faint angry shout coming from behind them, but because they were both fast, they had managed to make some distance between them and the scene. It should give them a headstart in case the dangerous person somehow knew where they were going.

They were heading towards Grotemarkstraat where it should still be busy at that hour. The dangerous person shouldn't be able to act freely with a lot of people as a witness. They avoided Raadhuislaan although it was closer and should also be busy because that was where the accident happened. The Police would be there and with their current appearance, they would be suspected of being criminals by the Police.

"They're chasing us!" said Luuk to Valentine who was running next to him.

They both suddenly felt the same dangerous pressure approaching them rapidly from behind. They didn't dare look back; they could only focus on running up ahead to safety. Grotemarkstraat was already within their sight, and there were more and more people in the street.

The dangerous presence kept getting closer and closer and then it suddenly disappeared. It seemed that they had realized that there were too many people around. Valentine and Luuk managed to escape from yet another unknown danger.

Pant... pant...

They both felt tired after running for their lives, but they couldn't stop and rest. They might not be completely safe yet, so they kept on walking.

"Who do you think it was?" asked Luuk after regulating his breathing.

"I don't know, but I don't think it's the same as the recent serial murder case," replied Valentine, "Their MOs are too different."

Valentine then remembered another ghoul that he had encountered and ran away from. According to Rafferty, the ghoul might be a summoned creature, and coupled with the angry shout just now, the facts now lined up.

"I think there is someone or even an organization that summons ghouls to kill people," said Valentine.

It was Luuk's first time encountering a ghoul, so he didn't know how his partner could come to that conclusion, but he trusted Valentine's words nonetheless.

"Should we report it to the Police?" suggested Luuk.

"We should. This is beyond our capabilities," said Valentine gravely, "We should trust in our law enforcement to deal with this,"

And then he stayed quiet for a while. They continued walking west and stayed with the crowd of people.

"Meanwhile, we need to get stronger so we can deal with something like this in the future," Valentine finally added.