Chapter 135: Kanna’s massacre

The moment Ron’s blade struck the black spike, a violent shock travelled through his arm.

His eyes widened instantly. His hand recoiled backward as his fingers trembled slightly, as if he had slammed his sword against a diamond.

His head snapped toward the black tendril blocking his attack.

Then, from the darkness beneath the ground, a woman emerged.

Kanna, wearing the same elegantly designed maid dress. No speck of dust stained her clothes despite rising directly from the ground itself.

Seraphina’s body instantly stiffened. Her eyes narrowed sharply as the woman appeared before her.

But Kanna didn’t even glance toward Seraphina.

Her expression remained as emotionless as ever, almost completely empty.

Another shadow spike erupted from the ground, as though darkness itself had manifested beneath the earth.

“Not again—!”

Ron shouted as he threw himself sideways, barely dodging the spike erupting from beneath the ground.

“What kind of affinity is th—”

His words abruptly stopped.

His eyes widened in horror as black tendrils wrapped tightly around both of his legs, locking him completely in place.

In the next instant, the surrounding shadows exploded violently, and multiple black spikes erupted upward all at once.

“AAAAAAAHHHHHHH—!!!!!”

A horrifying scream tore from Ron’s throat. One spike pierced directly through his pelvis, gruesomely destroying anything present between his legs.

Another tore through his chest.

Without any stop, more and more spikes riddled through his body, mercilessly tearing flesh apart and punching holes through bone as blood exploded outward.

His screams weakened into choked gargles before another spike tore directly through his skull, ripping from his jaw all the way to the top of his head.

Pin-drop silence fell over the ruined, cracked street.

Kanna, feeling slightly satisfied, retracted all the spikes back into the shadows.

Ron’s corpse, which had remained standing for a brief moment, dropped lifelessly onto the blood-soaked road as the shadows withdrew from it.

His body was riddled with holes, the chunks of torn flesh barely holding together.

The remaining Awakened’s face turned deathly pale, and he immediately tried to flee.

But to his absolute misfortune, the moment he moved—

Dark tendrils burst out from beneath his feet and instantly wrapped around his entire body, binding him in place.

“Aaaghh—! P-Please, le—!”

Another tentacle wrapped around his mouth, muffling his scream.

Then—

All the tentacles tightened. A crunching sound echoed in the ruins.

His bones cracked and shattered instantly. Muscles tore apart, and veins burst beneath his skin. The only visible part of his body was his bloodshot eyes, bulging outward to the point they looked ready to burst from their sockets.

And in the next instant, his entire body exploded into a grotesque puddle of blood and crushed flesh.

Seraphina’s face paled as bile violently rose within her throat.

She immediately covered her mouth with the hand holding the knife, forcing herself not to vomit.

Her gaze shifted toward the maid, who still hadn’t looked at her once despite standing only a few steps away.

Then suddenly—

Seraphina’s eyes froze as Kanna’s body sank into the shadows beneath her feet.

The black tentacles retreated into the ground alongside her, leaving nothing but chunks of flesh and a small pool of blood.

The two policemen had long collapsed onto the ground, their faces were deathly pale, their eyes filled with terror as they looked at the horrifying scene before them.

Just then, Kanna emerged directly before them from the shadows, nearly scaring the life out of them.

“N-No… p-please…” one of the officers muttered hoarsely, his body trembling uncontrollably, unable to even properly raise the handgun shaking in his grasp.

Kanna didn’t say anything.

Her dark, emotionless eyes simply stared down at them, and somehow her silence made it even more terrifying.

The cops instantly understood the woman had no intention of sparing them.

Finally, in desperation, one of them shakily raised his handgun and instantly pulled the trigger.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

Multiple gunshots rang through the air, the bullets whistling toward Kanna.

But just before they could reach her, her body moved—almost blurring—as she effortlessly dodged every single bullet.

The officer’s eyes widened in complete horror, yet he continued firing recklessly without stopping until the magazine was emptied entirely.

Feeling that she had played with them enough, Kanna blurred from her spot, a shadow dagger silently materializing within her hand.

Before either of them could even realize what had happened, she vanished, and in the next second, she was already standing back in her original position

At first, Seraphina didn’t understand what had happened, but then—

Both officers collapsed lifelessly onto the ground, their bodies slamming heavily against the cracked road.

And even though she couldn’t see it, she could tell their throats had been slit, killing them instantly.

In the next instant, the maid was standing directly before her.

Seraphina’s body trembled faintly, but she bit down on her lip hard enough to steady herself, forcing herself to remain standing.

Kanna silently observed her for a moment.

Her gaze briefly shifted toward the ice shard still clenched within Seraphina’s hand.

‘Ice affinity…’ Kanna thought inwardly, mildly surprised that she was already capable of using her affinity this well despite having only recently awakened.

After several seconds, her lips parted, and she spoke for the first time since arriving.

“You must be Lady Seraphina, correct?”

Even though she already knew the answer, she still gave the courtesy of asking.

Seraphina’s icy blue eyes narrowed immediately, her grip over the icicle tightening further.

“Who are you…?” Her voice trembled faintly, betraying the calm, cold expression on her face.

“Young Master Lucian sent me here to bring you.”

Seraphina’s expression instantly changed.

Her brows furrowed, then widened.

“Lucian…?”

Her voice almost came out breathless

“My son?”

Kanna nodded once.

“He’s safe? What about Lia then? Is she safe too?”

She gave another small nod.

“Both of them are perfectly fine.”

Her emotionless gaze slowly shifted toward the dead Awakened lying beside Seraphina.

“My apologies for arriving late. I should’ve come here earlier.”

She lifted her foot and pressed the heel of her black shoe against the man’s lifeless skull.

With only a faint amount of force, the skull caved inward like a rotten fruit. Blood and brain matter splattered beneath her shoe.

But in the next second, shadows spread across the surface of the heel before swallowing every stain completely, restoring the shoe to its spotless state.

Seraphina’s face scruched up as her eyes narrowed even more.

The relief Seraphina felt after hearing that her son was safe slowly began mixing with unease as she looked at the maid standing before her.

The woman before her looked—no, she was undoubtedly an Awakened.

And not just that, but someone extremely strong. Extremely dangerous.

She hadn’t even flinched while killing her own people.

“Well, anyway, let’s return,” Kanna’s flat voice echoed softly.

Her dark eyes rested upon Seraphina for a brief second.

Then, a precise strike landed against the side of Seraphina’s neck.

Her vision immediately darkened, but before her unconscious body could collapse, shadows spread beneath her feet like a dark pool and swallowed her whole.

The darkness retreated back into Kanna’s shadow.

Kanna had knocked her unconscious, having no desire to waste time explaining things to someone who wouldn’t understand much anyway.

After staring at the corpse beneath her silently, her gaze lifted toward the widening cracks spread across the ruined streets.

Toward where she had picked up both Lia and Lucian previously.

Distant howls echoed from afar, accompanied by deep growls and the countless noises of monsters.

Her expression remained indifferent as she sensed something happening there, but after a brief pause, she ignored it. Her body sank into the shadows beneath her feet before disappearing completely.

Returning to Bloodveil.

Nearly an hour passed.

The ruined streets remained eerily silent until several figures finally arrived at the scene.

A group of awakened, wearing a bit of light armor covering portions of their bodies, and weapons resting tightly in their grips.

“Where the hell is Ron and his gang?”

A woman muttered with a frown, repeatedly pressing the walkie-talkie attached near her shoulder, but no response came from the other side.

The deeper they moved into the ruined street, the darker their expressions became as a heavy metallic scent drifted toward them from somewhere nearby.

Their muscles tensed instinctively. Their grips around their weapons tightened.

But the moment they advanced further, their faces paled at the grotesque sight of flesh and blood scattered across the street.

“Did the monsters do that…?”

One of them spoke through the silence, his face tightening as they all walked closer.

The road ahead looked like a slaughterhouse.

Except for the two police officers, who lay dead with their throats cleanly slit, the three Awakened had died far more gruesome deaths.

One of them was relatively intact—though his head had been crushed like a watermelon.

“Wait… this is Ron’s!”

One of them shouted, instantly kneeling beside the hole-riddled corpse before grabbing the bloodied walkie-talkie lying nearby.

Even for them, who were a bit accustomed to death and monsters, the sight was still too grotesque for them, making their stomachs churn, and many of them turned away instantly.

“These officers… their throats were slit cleanly, and judging by the condition of the bodies, they were killed recently.”

The group’s leader spoke while tightly gripping the handgun in his hand, one that looked noticeably different from an ordinary firearm.

“…Which means they were killed by a human.”

The atmosphere instantly grew tense.

Every single one of them raised their guard, carefully scanning the surroundings. Whoever had done this was powerful, and according to their judgment, they should still be somewhere nearby.

Then suddenly—

A series of growls began echoing from every direction, most of them coming from the massive sunken area ahead of them.

Within seconds, multiple monsters started crawling out from the cracked roads.

Goblins.

Large wolves with bloodshot eyes.

And many more grotesque-looking monsters started coming nonstop from the crevices.

“Take your positions!”

The leader roared loudly, and without a moment of hesitation, everyone took their stances and grabbed their weapons.

The strange firearm in the leader’s hand glowed faintly before—

Bang—!

A deafening gunshot exploded through the ruined streets as a compressed sphere of mana tore through the incoming horde, blasting several monsters apart into chunks of flesh.

The others attacked immediately afterward.

Some of them unleashed their affinities. Fireballs exploded through the streets, and the ground cracked even further, forcing and hurling the monsters backward.

Corpses slowly began piling up one after another.

All of them fought relentlessly.

But none of them knew that the horde before them was only the beginning.

And that none of them would leave this place alive.