It was a cloudy day. Ken and the others helped the sisters to light the braziers in the city. Everyone got some kind of grey powder and they were asked to sprinkle a little of it into every brazier they saw. Upon doing so, Mei used a spell to remotely set all of them ablaze.

Half of the day was gone, when they set off to the previously mentioned village. It was of a similar size like where they fought the basilisk. First, they searched on the outside, but didn’t find anything. As expected, the citizens were empty and just walking around. Ken and Iris were in the front, while Aleric and Emilia followed them. They were on guard, carefully checking every corner and every street of the small town.

A bubbling sound came from beneath their feet, as if from the ground. A humanoid, dark silhouette emerged right in front of them, not very far. It looked like a faceless, deformed human with undefined shapes and elongated arms. Its insides were made of random glowing white arteries, which resembled a circulatory system. Emilia was already aiming at it with her sidearm, a pistol.

“Is it what we are looking for?” Aleric asked.

“You say. Does it look similar to anything you would see in your world?” Ken said.

“Well, no-”

“Kill it, Emilia.”

She shot the creature and it splattered that white liquid all around. Since it still stood, Emilia kept shooting, until it fell and disintegrated.

“Woah, this one was pretty easy!” she said.

Ken didn’t see any blue light around the corpse this time, unlike with the basilisk.

“It’s not dead, yet,” he said.

A similar entity emerged from the ground, once again. Aleric charged his spectral bow and released a powerful blast, instantly destroying the creature. They waited. After a while, it came up anew nearby. Iris was about to run at it and slash it, but another one arose. And another one. They continued spawning, five, six, seven. There were a dozen of them and the number kept rising.

The entities began walking towards them, some at a faster pace. Emilia and Aleric kept destroying them from a distance, while Ken and Iris slashed them if they came too close. Bullets flew through them, leaving holes and Aleric’s explosions were eliminating a lot of them at once. The weird substance they were made of were softer than human flesh, with the white insides splattering all over the place. Ken was slicing them one after another and it was actually satisfying. His blade easily thrusted the creature, he pulled it out and slashed another one in half. It felt like being in a low level zone in a game. Iris quickly dashed between them, slicing, cutting, stabbing and killing them in a chain. Those backflips and mid-air spins with her daggers made it all look like perfect executions.

But there were a lot of them. A bit too many. The waves kept coming and there was no stopping or a short break.

“One is different!” Iris shouted.

Ken looked around and in the distance, in between the enemies, he could see one standing out. It was just slightly bigger, but much more disgusting. Its insides were bright red instead of white, and it was probably the leader or something. Still, it looked weak, just like the rest. The mysterious being just stood there and watched. Iris was trying to cut through the horde to get to him, but it wasn’t possible.

“I see him too!” said Emilia, “But I will need a higher ground to be able to use my-”

One of the creatures was behind Emilia, unnoticed. It suddenly widened, transformed into a slime-like substance and enveloped her. She struggled on the ground while the slime covered more and more of her body. The others tried to help her, but they couldn’t even reach her. The pistol got knocked out of her hands and she was wrapped completely, like a cocoon.

“Emilia!” Ken shouted.

He managed to get closer to her, but the others were struggling. Aleric was on the ground already, immobile. Ken and Iris couldn’t slay the enemies fast enough and the pressure was high. At some point, she was caught as well. Ken reached Emilia and was about to cut through the cocoon, when he felt something cold and wet holding his hand. Shortly after, he was engulfed with the slimy black matter and fell down. All of the creatures stopped moving. The red, special one walked towards them and stood near Emilia. Even though it didn’t have eyes, nor face, it felt like it was staring right into Ken’s soul. The pistol Emilia was using was lying on the ground near Ken, so he reached out for it and attempted to get it, while being slowly consumed by the dark slime. The creature dropped on all fours and came closer to Emilia. It was about to devour her.

Ken was almost completely enveloped, when he reached the pistol and shot the disgusting substance off of himself. After his legs and the sword hand were freed, he began cutting through the enemies, which were focused on attacking him. Cutting with the right hand, shooting with the left. He was always bad with guns, but using the pistol on that short range was surprisingly very effective. His lacking aim didn’t matter, when the target’s head was right near and all that was needed was to just blast it away. The red entity realized its in danger and tried to flee. Ken managed to hit it twice and slow its movement before it began spawning its copies around itself. He quickly released Emilia and began chasing it.

“Poor thing, running for its life, after it has been exposed,” he thought.

“Ken, crouch for me!” Emilia shouted.

“What? Why? We can’t stop now!”

“Trust me!”

The creature, even when injured, was escaping pretty fast and they probably wouldn’t be able to catch it. Ken decided to go with whatever Emilia thought of, and crouched.

“Here goes nothing!” she said, jumped on Ken’s shoulder and sprung herself upwards. Mid air, she aimed at the fleeing thing. The sniper shot echoed throughout the village and Emilia fell right back onto Ken. All of the entities with white insides disintegrated after a short while, including the cocoons locking up Iris and Aleric. Only the red one remained, lying dead.

Emilia stood up and dusted herself off, while Ken tried to endure the shoulder pain. He looked at the creature’s corpse, which began to emit blue light.

“You have the camera, right? Record it! Asap!”

Emilia was confused, but she took out the camera from her backpack and started the recording. Ken also stood up and went closer to see what that blue light is. The glow was coming from a pattern, which was not visible before, painted on the creature’s body. It seemed like the pattern meant something, as it was made of numerous glyphs, or some kind of alphabet. Ken assumed that the blue light coming out of the basilisk while on fire, was likely the same thing. After a while, the glow ceased and the pattern disappeared.

“Who are you?” one of the village’s residents asked. “What happened?”

More of them were gaining their senses back.

“It’s Aleric, the Light Warden!”

“They saved us!”

“Are we winning the war?”

Aleric smiled, seeing the curse being cleansed. He raised his hand and began speaking in a powerful voice, getting all the attention.

“Heed me, people of this village! I deeply understand the confusion you are going through, but fear not! The war is not over, though I am asking you to stay calm. We ourselves do not fully comprehend this situation and therefore we need you to remain at your homes, until further word arrives!”

After some investigation, it came out that literally nobody knew what was going on. Their memories have been completely erased and the last thing they remember was their town being invaded by the Cryth.

“Now then,” Aleric said, “We must head back to Nataran.”

“What’s the hurry?” Emilia asked.

“When fighting that thing… I sensed something unusually dark, and… evil. The creature was not an ordinary life form like we are used to. It strongly resembled something mentioned in the old legends, and for that I need to discuss with Enju. If anyone had knowledge regarding this, it would be him.”