[A high-risk individual has breached the camp. Order: Eliminate immediately!]
[Order: Eliminate immediately!]
The alarms erupted across the entire factory.
At once, waves of rebels poured out of their rooms.
"What's going on? Did New Eridu launch an attack already?"
"Hard to say—but intel says there's only one intruder!"
"One person caused this much trouble? There's no one on the lower levels! Did they already take him out?"
"No, the alarm's still going—wait, there's noise above us! He came in from the top floor!"
Amid the growing uproar, the rebels finally noticed the strange sounds coming from the ceiling overhead.
Creaking metal. A chain of collapsing floors. The splash of running liquid. Screams from their comrades, all tangled together.
They still couldn't see anything—but just listening to it made their skin crawl. The crowd grew restless, edging toward panic.
There were even signs of an impending rout.
"Silence!"
A sudden shout rang out from somewhere on the factory's lower level.
The voice carried an almost uncanny authority. Even the most terrified rebels were reduced to trembling in place, no longer collapsing to the ground in fear of the sounds above.
Eyes quickly turned toward the source.
At the center of the crowd stood a towering figure. The left half of his face was hidden behind a mask, a heavy coat draped over his shoulders. As he spoke, sparks of blazing fire flickered around the hem of his coat, igniting fierce morale in every rebel who laid eyes on him.
The rebel branch's military commander—Aurok the Mad.
Aurok's cold gaze swept across the crowd as he prepared to rally them.
"Stand up straight. Listen carefully! We—"
"The ceiling's collapsing!"
Before Aurok could finish, someone finally broke under the pressure. A trembling finger pointed upward at the spreading cracks in the ceiling.
From deep within those fissures, liquid was already seeping through.
Wait—
That liquid looked red.
Everyone who followed the cry and looked up felt their hearts seize at the same instant, all thinking the same thing.
Come to think of it… hadn't the sounds above gone quiet for a while now?
Crack—
The thought had barely formed when another fracture split open. A small stone broke free and dropped, landing squarely on a rebel's head.
He froze.
When his fingers brushed the debris tangled in his hair, it felt as though his heart stopped beating altogether. His blood ran ice-cold.
The next second, his face drained of color as he screamed hysterically,
"Run! Everyone run!"
Boom!
With a thunderous roar, the ceiling collapsed.
Sunlight poured down from above. The afternoon warmth would have been pleasant—on any normal day, it would've been perfect weather to bask in.
But for these rebels hiding underground like frightened moles, that light was nothing less than a reaper's scythe.
And it wasn't just sunlight that fell.
Rubble and shattered concrete followed—along with piled corpses and mangled flesh from multiple collapsed floors.
Hovering amid it all was a vampire.
Just the sight of those wings was enough to make hearts fail.
"Run!"
No one knew who shouted it, but the camp finally dissolved into total chaos.
Orders were ignored. Discipline vanished. Everyone fled in blind terror, scrambling to avoid falling debris and broken bodies, utterly devoid of any will to fight.
"Don't run! None of you are allowed to run!"
Aurok roared, trying desperately to stop the fleeing soldiers.
"All of you, raise your weapons! Are you trying to disobey military orders?! Get back here—ugh!"
His pupils suddenly dilated.
His neck jerked stiffly downward.
At some point, an Ether crystal had emerged from behind him, piercing straight through his spine and out his abdomen.
"This is… ah!"
Aurok's voice shook as he reached out, trying to get a better look.
Then the Ether crystal began to grow.
Rapidly.
It carried Aurok with it, lifting his entire body into the air and hurling him toward the already-collapsed ceiling.
Several seconds later, the growth finally stopped.
Suspended in midair, limbs dangling, Aurok struggled to raise his head and open his eyes.
What he saw was a pale face—and a pair of crimson eyes, gleaming brilliantly against the backlight.
For no clear reason, that face felt familiar.
He froze, then recognition struck.
"You're that rogue vampire!" Aurok shouted. "You're Phaga!"
Phaga looked mildly surprised. He lifted a hand and lightly tipped Aurok's chin up, a faint smile curling at his lips.
"Oh? You know me. Looks like you've been spending quite a bit of time online lately."
"But this isn't the moment to play nice. Tell me where your other rebel branches are. I might let you avoid falling to your death right now."
Aurok struggled a few times, only to realize escape was impossible.
He glared up at Phaga in fury. Flames erupted around his fist as he swung it forward with all his strength.
"Don't even think about it!"
"…Heh."
Phaga tilted his head and casually raised his right hand, catching the punch with ease.
At the same time, dark crimson Netherflame ignited in his palm, instantly overwhelming and devouring the fire in Aurok's fist.
Before Aurok's eyes, the Netherflame chased the last remnants of that meager blaze, spreading up his arm and onto his shoulder.
The sudden agony forced a scream from his throat.
The sound was so miserable that even the rebels who had briefly steadied themselves at Aurok's earlier rally began to waver again.
And once they heard their commander's screams firsthand, the remaining rebels who hadn't fled completely lost their nerve.
They cried out in terror and ran.
"The timing of their escape is about what I expected."
High above, Phaga took everything in. Every movement. Every fleeing figure.
"Though some of them are faster than I anticipated," he added lightly. "Seems even rebels aren't entirely worthless."
He sighed and pressed all five fingers against Aurok's chest.
Aurok frowned, an intense tingling sensation spreading instantly.
The next moment, Phaga smiled.
To Aurok, it was no different from a demon's grin. Even his words carried a hypnotic, hellish cadence.
"You didn't want to talk earlier? That's fine."
"You'll start talking on your own."
Phaga's palm slammed down.
In an instant, countless blood threads burst violently from Aurok's limbs, spraying into the air.
They drifted like filaments—ethereal, weightless, and terrifying.
Moments later, a hollow voice echoed through the entire factory.
"[Blazing Sacrifice · Bloodthread Run]."