The basement did not smell like death.
But it smelled worse.
It smelled like rot, sour milk, old blood, damp stone, and fear that had soaked into the walls for years. The air was thick, heavy enough to feel like something physical pressing against the lungs. The torches along the corridor burned low, their weak light barely touching the corners of the massive underground chamber.
Gabriel stopped.
For the first time since entering the Tepes castle's basement, she did not move forward.
Her eyes widened slowly as the scene unfolded before her.
Rows of iron cages. Stone cells. Rusty bars. Chains embedded into the walls.
Inside them were bodies.
Children. Women. Dhampirs.
Some were alive. Some were barely alive. Some were not alive at all.
Children lay on cold stone floors, their bodies thin to the point of distortion. Their ribs were visible through skin stretched too tightly across bone. Their lips were cracked. Their eyes sunken. Some stared blankly at the ceiling. Some were too weak to move. Others did not even react to the light.
In wooden troughs outside the cages was food.
If it could even be called that.
Minced meat soaked in milk, grey and congealed, its smell sour and nauseating. It looked less like food and more like something prepared for livestock. Something made to keep bodies alive, not people.
Pregnant women were chained to the walls.
Their faces were hollow. Their eyes empty. Their bodies trembling from exhaustion.
In one corner, several corpses lay piled together.
Small bodies.
Children. Babies.
Some had died from starvation. Some from disease. Some simply from giving up.
Even dhampirs were kept here.
Not as kin. Not as allies.
As property. They were branded. Chained. Broken.
They looked less like people and more like livestock. Well, they are a livestock for the Vampires.
Gabriel had lived for thousands of years.
She had seen The Great War.
Genocides.
Demonic invasions.
Hellscapes.
She had seen abominations that would shatter human minds.
But this...
Her breath caught in her chest.
Her lips parted.
No words came out.
Her twelve wings trembled faintly.
Her hands shook.
"This is..." Her voice broke. Tears flowed from her eyes.
"This is another side of power," Jay said quietly, his voice cutting through the damp air like a blade.
"An irresponsible abuse of authority. But it is also born from the ignorance of those who hold power, just like your kind, Seraph Gabriel. This is your fault too. All of you." He said, his dark hazel eyes fixed on the Seraph with a cold gaze.
Gabriel bit her lip until it bled, unable to find the words to defend herself or the Heavens.
"The Heavens, the Vampires, even the humans with power... none of these people possess any of that," Jay continued, gesturing to the shivering children.
"They are victimized by the very world you claim to oversee. There are likely millions more like this across the globe.... the abandoned, the suffering, and the dead who were never given a choice."
Gabriel remained silent, her shoulders trembling under the weight of his accusation.
"There are 1,489 people in this hellhole," Jay said, his eyes scanning the cages.
"Perhaps to an immortal being like you, that is not a large number. To the strong, the lives of the weak are often just a game of numbers, a statistics. Irrelevant. Unimportant. Almost as if they never existed at all."
"I..." Gabriel stopped her words.
Without another word, Jay drew Ame-no-Habakiri from his dimensional pocket.
The obsidian blade did not hum with its usual bloodlust as it remained silent, a tool of liberation.
He walked with a steady mechanical stride, his expression entirely empty as he moved from cell to cell. With precise, effortless slashes, he cut through the enchanted iron bars, opening every single confinement in the room.
Gabriel remained in place for a moment longer, contemplating the harsh truth of his words, before the sight of a weeping child spurred her into motion.
She clenched her teeth and knelt by the first cell. Lavinia was already ahead of her, moving with frantic grace.
The ice magician used her healing spells on the victims, her hands glowing with a soft, comforting green-blue light as she mended broken spirits and withered bodies.
Gabriel stopped at a cell containing a small boy. His body was so thin he looked like a corpse, and jagged bite marks marred his neck and arms. As the Seraph's holy light washed over him, the boy opened his eyes and saw her radiant form.
"Are... you... an angel...?" he whispered, his voice barely audible.
Gabriel could only weep as she pressed her forehead against the bars, pouring her divinity into his small, frail frame.
As the work continued, Jay stood back and watched Gabriel.
His left eye, marked with the golden X, pulsed with a rhythmic light.
Dragon Eye - The Avesta, he called. Recalling the way that dragon always spoke of it.
With his eyes, Jay read and memorized every single line of it. Then he raised his hand, and golden, thread-like glowing light appeared on top of his palm.
'These eyes… so my hypothesis is right. This is Azi Dahaka's way of using some kind of anti-magic, maybe by completely ruining the structure of the spell or something like that. But the strange thing is that holy magic, demonic magic, and some pantheon magic don't follow structure the way human magic does but i still able to reconstruct it.'
For example, demonic power or magic uses imagination as its catalyst. That is basically its special trait, which is extremely busted. While an angel is born with holy power that can harm creatures of darkness such as Devils and Vampires, they mainly manifest their innate energy, which is holy energy.
But with these eyes, even such unstructured magic can be defined as a structure in a strange way.
'That means from now on, I don't even need to follow the strict rules of structure anymore to perform strictly human magic. With these eyes, I can use or reconstruct any type of magic, as long as I change its source of energy.'
For example, what Jay just did was basically copy everything Gabriel's holy healing magic was doing, but he changed its source from holy energy to his own energy, which he severely lacks right now, as he feels very strained just by using this simple holy powered healing magic.
Basically, it is like copying code to a different computer. The energy source is different, but the code does the same thing.
Then the main question is, does that mean Holy Energy and Demonic Energy are just one and the same in the end?
But at the same time, they still have their special traits, such as Holy Power, which is created by the God of the Bible, or Demonic Power, which is different for each devil lineage.
Does that mean their energy type is irrelevant, as he can still use its special properties as long as it is contained or written in the structure? For example, as long as he keeps Baal's Demonic Power's destruction trait in the structure, he can basically use it himself?
Basically, it is just a different computer with slightly different software but the same hardware.
But Jay is sure it is not that simple. Even a simple holy healing magic is already very hard for him to implement right now.
"Illya-kun, is that... healing magic?" Lavinia asked, pausing as she finished treating a wounded girl. "Since when did you know how to do that?"
"I just learned it," Jay replied shortly.
Lavinia tilted her head in confusion. "What do you mean you just learned it?"
She didn't have time to press him for an answer. She tapped the head of the little girl she had just healed and gently guided her toward the entrance where the other survivors were gathering.
The little girl stopped and looked up at Lavinia with large, hollow eyes. "I want to meet my mom. Onee-chan, can you help me find her? She was with me here, but the masters took her away some time ago."
The silence that followed was agonizing.
Jay and Lavinia exchanged a look, both of them knowing the likely fate of any adult taken from this basement. Lavinia forced a gentle smile and patted the girl's head.
"Yes, we will search for her later, okay? For now, go and stay with the others."
"Um!" the girl nodded, hugging Lavinia body before walking slowly toward the group of survivors.
As Lavinia watched her go, the smile on her face slowly crumbling.
Tears began to track through the dust on her cheeks.
"I don't even have the courage to tell her that her mother is almost certainly dead."
Jay stepped forward and grabbed her wrist, pulling her into a silent, firm hug.
"She reminded me of myself," Lavinia sobbed into his chest. "I don't know what would have happened to me if Oshishou-sama hadn't adopted me back then. She must've been so lonely, Illya-kun."
"I know," Jay said, his voice low.
Lavinia pulled back slightly, her eyes red but determined. "I want to do something for them. Not just today. I want to give them something real."
"Then let's do it," Jay said. Lavinia stopped and listened.
"There are rooms full of gold, diamonds, and rubies in this castle. The vampires gathered them over centuries. We will take them and use them to give these people a place to live and a better life."
"Do you mean an orphanage?" Lavinia asked, her voice hopeful.
"A home," Jay corrected. "They have no one left in this world. No families. No home to return to. Let's build them a sanctuary they can call home, just like Sister Andrea gave me one, and Glenda gave you one."
Jay thought of his own home, of Sister Andrea and the life he had fought so hard to protect.
He was not a righteous person by any means. Some people would call him evil. He had killed thousands... humans, vampires, devils, god, and even dragon. Some of them were enemies. Some of them were monsters. And maybe… some of them had been innocent, just like these people.
But judgment, in the end, is purely subjective. There is no one who has the objective right to judge another, not even a god.
And then he leaned close and whispered into Lavinia's ear.
He leaned down and whispered into Lavinia's ear, his voice gaining a rare warmth.
"Let's make a better world for them."