The air in the basement had begun to clear as Gabriel and Lavinia worked in tandem to stabilize the hundreds of survivors.
After the last of the wounds were closed and the immediate threat of death had been averted, Jay turned toward them. His face was pale, his breath shallow over lack of energy, but his gaze remained sharp.
"Lavi… please take them out of here," Jay said, his voice hoarse. "Find them food and water. I'll join you after I've emptied this castle."
Lavinia looked at him with concern, her hands still glowing with the faint residue of her healing magic.
"Illya-kun, you should come with us. You can barely stand."
"It's fine. I can still use simple spatial magic," Jay replied, his tone leaving no room for argument.
Lavinia nodded reluctantly, beginning to guide the first group of children toward the exit.
Gabriel lingered for a moment, standing beside Jay as they watched the procession of the survivors limping toward the tunnel with Lavinia in front of them. The Seraph turned to him, her expression a mix of sorrow and genuine admiration.
"You know... I just want to say thank you for showing me this, Illya-san," Gabriel said softly.
Jay did not answer. He didn't even turn his head.
"And I am also thankful because of you...," she continued, her voice gaining strength. "My brother, myself, and hundreds of the Church survivors still live. We would not have been able to defeat that monster without your power. You saved more than just these people today."
Again, Jay remained silent.
Her gratitude was meaningless to him.
He hadn't fought the dragon to save the Church, nor the Seraphs.
and certainly not the Vampires.
"How about the remaining Vampires?" Jay asked, his voice cold. "What are you going to do with them?"
"The Vampires... You mean the Carmilla faction?" Gabriel asked.
"We have made a truce with them. Since the Tepes faction has been utterly defeated and its entire faction destroyed, the conflict between the Church and the Carmillas is effectively nullified. We will observe the peace."
"Even after you know what they do to these people?" Jay's left eye, the golden X glowing faintly in the dim light, slid toward her.
"They probably have a hellhole just like this one in their own territory. Are you going to ignore that too?"
Gabriel looked away, her hands clasping together. "I understand what you are saying, Illya-san. Truly. But Heaven does not betray its word. We have given our vow to the Carmilla Vampires that we will not seek further conflict. To break that vow would be to abandon our own nature."
"I see. So that is your stance," Jay said, closing his eyes.
He gave a small, sharp nod to Lavinia, who was waiting at the far end of the hall.
She understood the signal and activated a wide-scale teleportation spell, whisking the survivors and herself toward the surface. Gabriel prepared to depart as well, her body beginning to shimmer with holy light.
Jay turned to walk deeper into the castle, but he stopped and spoke one last time over his shoulder.
"You know that a silent witness is no better than the perpetrator, right?" Jay asked.
Gabriel froze, the holy light around her flickering. Jay's Dragon Eye stared into her, stripping away the comfort of her divine morality.
"It seems my understanding of your kind was correct from the beginning. Thank you for confirming it, Seraph Gabriel."
He didn't wait for her response.
Jay stepped into the shadows of the inner corridor, leaving the Seraph standing alone in the dark, silent basement.
***
Though every step felt like a hammer blow to Jay's ribs. His life force was a flickering candle, and his mana was so low that even the thought of magic caused a sharp, stabbing pain in his temples.
He needed to find the treasury of the Tepes, but his senses were dulled. He closed his eyes and forced a brief activation of his Domain.
The map of the castle flickered through his mind for a fraction of a second and that was enough. Three distinct nodes of gold, precious metals, and gemstones flared into clarity.
Left wing. Central spire. Right wing.
He moved toward the first one, descending a spiral staircase that led to a massive, ornate gate.
It was constructed of the same heavy, enchanted metal as the altar Rizevim had used to torment Valerie Tepes and extracted two of the Grails from her. Jay placed his hand on the cold surface and pushed.
The hinges groaned, protesting the intrusion, before swinging open to reveal a chamber the size of an indoor court.
Inside, the sight was staggering. Mountains of gold coins, jagged piles of raw rubies, and chests overflowing with diamonds reached toward the ceiling. It was a hoard gathered over a thousand years of blood and conquest.
Treasure probably worth billions of dollars, gleaming in the dim light.
'They are loaded...,' Jay thought, leaning against the doorframe to catch his breath.
This is more than enough to build an orphanage for them. Food. Clothes. Infrastructure for thousands of people, for decades. And there are still two more rooms like this.
He reached out, preparing to activate spatial magic and draw the treasures into his pocket dimension. But before he could mutter a single word, a flat, toneless voice echoed through the vault.
"I, found you."
Jay's heart skipped a beat. He spun around, his hand instinctively reaching out, ready to draw Habakiri, his mind screaming in alarm.
'A person? How could I not sense them?'
Standing at the entrance was a young girl who looked no older than twelve. She had long, raven-black hair that reached down to her hips and eyes as dark as the void. Her ears were pointed at the tips, and through his Dragon Eye, Jay could see in the darkness that her pupils were thin, reptilian slits against her black irises.
"Who are you?" Jay asked, his voice tensed. "Are you lost, kid?"
The girl stood only about four and a half feet tall, looking fragile and out of place among the mountains of gold. She tilted her head, watching him with an expressionless face.
"I, searching for you after sensing that noisy lizard's power," she said.
Jay stared at her, but his left eye provided no answers.
Usually, he could see the flow of mana, and with Dragon Eye, he could perceive it even more clearly. But this girl emitted nothing. She was a hole in reality. His eyes could see her physical form, yet it was almost as if they could not comprehend her existence.
A nothingness.
"You, strong," the girl said. "Do, you want to help me defeat another noisy lizard?"
"What... are you even talking about?," Jay replied.
Suddenly, an aura erupted from her small frame.
It wasn't mana or holy light. It was a dark, purplish haze that seemed to expand infinitely. In Jay's vision, millions of words and sentences began to flow through the air like an endless stream of data. The threads of her power stretched toward every corner of the universe, bypassing the walls of the castle as if they didn't exist.
In Jay's mind, there was only one word that could describe the aura he felt.
Infinite.
'What the hell... who is this kid?' Jay's eyes widened.
He considered teleporting immediately, but before he could even flex his will, the girl appeared directly in front of him. She didn't attack. Instead, she reached out and hugged him.
"Huh?"
Jay stood frozen. He was a master of combat, a man who had killed a god and a dragon, but he found himself unable to move even an inch. Her small arms held him with a strength that defied the laws of physics. It felt as if a mountain were leaning against his chest.
"You, felt like home," the girl said softly.
She ruffled her black hair against Jay's stomach, her presence overwhelming his senses. Jay's mind raced, trying to make sense of her statement.
"Wait... Who are you? And why are you searching for me?"
The girl released him and stepped back, tilting her head.
"I, Ophis. You, strong. I, want to go home and your power can help me kill big noisy Red."
"Ophis…" Jay repeated the name. It felt familiar. He remembered Azazel mentioning it once in passing, but he couldn't quite recall the details.
"So, Ophis... I don't think I understand," Jay said, reaching out almost instinctively to ruffle her hair, a gesture of confusion more than anything.
"I don't know who this noisy Red is, but I don't think I can help you. I am not even as strong as you are."
Ophis didn't pull away from his hand.
"But, you have that power inside you. The end inside you. The zero. The opposite of infinity. You strong."
'The end inside me? Is she talking about the Black Flame?' Jay wondered.
But then Ophis paused, releasing his body from the tight hug.
"I, guess you are weak now. And unstable," Ophis said, her eyes scanning his body.
Jay knew she was right. The soul and flesh of Azi Dahaka that the Grail had used to reconstruct his body hadn't fully integrated yet. His soul felt like a jigsaw puzzle with pieces that didn't quite fit, leaving his energy erratic and his physical form fragile.
"But, after you are strong. Let's team up and beat noisy Red."
Ophis then reached out and touched Jay's stomach.
A dark, obsidian light with a purple hue enveloped his body. It didn't burn... instead, it felt like a cool balm being poured over his jagged nerves.
Slowly, his energy began to stabilize. The mana started to flow through his circuits with less resistance. It wasn't a total recovery, but he felt thirty percent better than he had a moment ago.
"I, help you a little bit," Ophis said. Her void-like black irises locked onto his dark hazel eyes.
Jay was speechless. The most powerful entity he had ever encountered had just given him a tune-up and a hug.
"Uhm... thanks?"
"Let's meet again, sometimes."
Ophis turned and walked toward the entrance. As she stepped into the shadows, she disappeared into a rift of black and purple void that simply ceased to exist a second later.
Jay stood alone in the treasury, his heart finally slowing down. He leaned against a pile of gold coins and slid to the floor, breathing heavily.
He had just encountered a Being that made Azi Dahaka look like a literal lizard just like she said. In his eyes, her power is incomprehensible.
He sighed, looking at his hands. Even with the Black Flame and his new eyes, he wasn't sure if a creature like that could ever be defeated.
After a few minutes of processing the encounter, Jay forced himself to stand. He used his remaining strength to activate his spatial magic, systematically moving every mountain of gold and every chest of jewels into his pocket dimension.
He moved through the other two storage rooms with the same mechanical efficiency, stripping the Tepes family of every cent they had ever collected or stolen.
By the time he was finished, Tepes Castle had been emptied twice... of its people and of its treasure.
Both by himself.
***
As Jay teleported back to the surface, the world reformed around him in a soft spatial distortion.
The children, both humans and dhampirs, and pregnant woman had gathered near the center of the plaza inside the destroyed Carmilla Territory, huddled together in small groups.
They were eating real food, what looked like warm soup and bread, their hollow expressions slowly giving way to quiet relief. The air smelled faintly of cooked herbs and clean water.
Griselda stood among them, moving gently and carefully, distributing bowls.
Jay noticed that more angels had arrived as well.
Some radiated stronger heavier auras, unmistakably Seraph-tier presences. In the distance, divine light shimmered as they worked, cleansing the ruins, stabilizing structures, healing the scorched, corrupted ground.
Recovery operations.
'Michael must have called them,' Jay thought.
Lavinia stood beside Griselda, helping pour warm soup into wooden bowls.
The bowls themselves were being formed by an ash-blonde Russian woman standing nearby, Mirana, who shaped them effortlessly using some form of magic, her hands glowing faintly as wood manifested from condensed mana.
When Lavinia noticed Jay, she froze for a split second, then smiled.
Not a bright smile. A tired thin smile, but a grateful one.
Jay returned it with a thin smile of his own.
For a brief moment, neither of them said anything.
Then the air shifted as a familiar pressure descended.
Figures appeared in a soft descent of light.
It was Michael, Gabriel, Dulio.
And the last one,
Jay's gaze hardened instantly. Even before fully registering her presence, his eyes found her. The woman stood calmly, composed, her expression unreadable.
Queen Carmilla.
Michael stepped forward, his expression calm but serious.
Then he spoke.
"Illya-san, if you don't mind, can we talk a few things?"