Annie was confused, people died all the time so why would her mother make a big deal of this.

" Okay, so what if some rich guy died, people die all the time."

" It’s not the fact that he’s dead, it’s how he died. His eyes were gouged out or at least that’s the official statement."

Annie raised her eyebrow, " And the truth is?"

Her father answered instead, " They melted, his eyes melted into his socket, it was quite a gruesome sight I tell you."

He sounded shaken by that. Annie thought of something. " I need to check something out."

She left, she ran towards the victim’s house and sneaked inside making sure nobody saw her.

She got to the bathroom where his body was found. There was nothing suspicious there except the room was cold.

Unnaturally cold in fact, ’ A dead spirit could’ve been here. If my suspicions are correct then...’ she didn’t dare finish her thoughts.

She ran back to her parents. " I’m sorry, I have to leave, tell those two rats I love them and I’ll see them soon."

They nodded, " Oh sweetie, don’t forget, they’re turning 16 soon, you might want to consider their future."

Annie, " Yeah I know mom." She crushed the ticket to the black market and a gate opened letting her through.

Adrian was surprised to see her coming back so soon. He immediately told her about his vision.

" You’re sure your visions are accurate?" She asked.

He nodded, " Yeah, I wouldn’t say accurate, things can change but they do show me what’s generally going to occur."

" Then things aren’t good Adrian, somebody just died."

Adrian raised his eyebrow, " What does that have to do with anything? People die all the time."

" The issue is the way he died, come." They went to their room. She took out her magic book.

" Show me everything you have on the Bloody Mary." Writing appeared on the book filling nearly 8 pages.

" Here we go, the Bloody Mary, it’s a great spirit on the level of Leprechauns and other great spirits.

It’s also called the mother of ghosts, guide of the lost, the angel of vengeance amongst other names.

As a spirit, the Bloody Mary is nearly impossible to kill with myriad of abilities, the most known being able to command spirits of the dead. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

Even if you do manage to kill one, they’ll always return as they can never be fully dead since they already are.

You can kill the current Bloody Mary but another will be born. The issue is how and when they’re born.

The only thing that can create a Bloody Mary is the relic called the Shroud of Mary, a pure white dress that was worn by Saintess Mary in her life."

" Mary, who is that?" Adrian asked.

" Let me check." Annie asked the book and received information about Mary.

" Mary was a medium, the most powerful medium to ever live, believed to be the first medium to ever live.

Unlike other mediums, she didn’t just talk to ghosts but controlled them. She could send them to the afterlife with just a wave of her hand.

The church at the time was still young and did not have many occult mages and the world was still very sexists.

More than today? geeze that must’ve sucked for the girls, anyways.

Even though Mary was a nun of the church and spent her life helping others. The church still called her a witch.

They knew the truth but it did not matter, they feared her power and that was enough to condemn her.

They burnt her eyes until they melted because they claimed those are devil eyes that let her see demons.

However they had underestimated her power, on the brink of death Mary awakened as the first Bloody Mary.

Since then, they’ve been two other Bloody Mary, What’s interesting though is how they were born and when.

Because Mary was a female medium, a Bloody Mary can only be a female medium who is on the brink of death.

But not natural death, they must’ve been attacked by somebody and must have extreme grievances and desire for vengeance just before death.

As for when they’re born, each time a Bloody Mary is born, it means an era of chaos is on the way."

" Era of chaos, what does that even mean? The world is always chaotic." Adrian asked confused.

Annie looked at him then shrugged, " I saw something about that in the library but I just glazed over it.

I think it said something about Bloody Mary being one of the seals for something, I’m not sure let me check.

Book, tell me about the seals including Bloody Mary." Her question wasn’t too clear but she knew the book would know.

She didn’t know whether it could read her mind or not, even when her questions were barely structured it always knew how to answer.

" Okay, here it is, Bloody Mary is stated to be the first of the 12 seals. She is symbolised by the rising of the grieved souls.

Grieved souls are those who died unjustly and went unavenged. Their killer must’ve kept their death a secret and went unpunished.

Aren’t those just most victims of serial killers. Anyways, it also says those who help hide the death will face the judgement of the souls.

So you don’t really have to kill anybody yourself, if you hide that you know or you helped the perpetrator not face judgement then you’re in for it."

" Lawyers are fucked aren’t they?" He asked and she nodded.

" Yeah, cops too, in fact a lot of people are going to die."

" Is there a way to stop it?" He asked because he had a feeling the guild was going to be commissioned to deal with this.

" Yeah, there’s a method included here. One, you can kill the Bloody Mary which is nearly impossible.

Unless you have a specific weapon designed to kill spirits or have werewolf venom, you’re not killing her.

She’s a spirit so salt and iron should still be able to harm her to an extent. The second and easiest one is a confession.

The killer has to publicly confess their crime and be held accountable before the grieved souls gets to them.

Yep, they’re going to die." She closed the book. " That’s it on the Bloody Mary, I need to go back to my parents."

" Yeah sure, wait, didn’t you say a guy has died already? Are sure nobody else knew of their crime and hid it?"

She shrugged, " Who cares, if they hid a murder then they deserve it." Her answer made him pause.

He would’ve understood if that came from him, he didn’t really care much about human life but Annie.

She cared way too much, he figured she must hate those type of people the most to not even give a damn if they died or not.

He said nothing and watched her leave, " Now, we just have to wait for the missions, I wonder how many of our mercenaries will die this time."