Celeste did not care what Irene was thinking.
She tilted her head slightly, her blood pupils glancing at the pack of monsters, and then she snapped her fingers.
There was no dazzling explosion or intense confrontation.
The dozen or so ferocious monsters suddenly burst into flames, turning into the finest black ash in the blink of an eye and dissipating silently into the air.
Not a single struggle or wail was left behind.
The alley returned to a deathly silence, leaving only the sound of nearby fires burning.
Irene slumped to the ground.
If the previous monsters had given her an insurmountable sense of despair, then the Witch before her made her unable to even conceive the thought of resistance.
She watched as the Witch slowly turned around, her blood pupils landing calmly on her.
“You, you are…”
Irene’s voice trembled, carrying a hint of relief from having survived a disaster, yet also a measure of fear toward the Witch.
Celeste looked down at the young Inquisitor from a height, the corners of her mouth curling slightly.
“No need to doubt it. I am that Witch wanted everywhere by your Inquisition.”
“N-Nightingale?!”
Irene gasped, her body shrinking back as her instincts screamed of danger.
Thinking she was Nightingale had only been a guess before, but once she received the Witch’s personal admission, the guess became a fact.
This fact was enough to make her shudder.
Nightingale was a terrifying Witch that the entire Inquisition had been unable to capture.
How could she, a lowly Inquisitor, possibly be her opponent?
If the Witch hated Inquisitors, she might just kill her on a whim…
‘Perhaps I am destined to die here tonight.’
While Irene was trapped in self-doubt and fear, the young maid Lily, whom she had seen earlier, ran to Nightingale’s side.
She grabbed a corner of the Witch’s robes and pleaded with a glimmer of hope:
“Lady… can you please save our Young Lady? Lady Tia, she went that way to lure the monsters away! She must be in great danger right now!”
As the words fell, the alley fell into a dead silence.
Irene gripped Viola’s sleeve in horror, looking at Lily with utter incomprehension.
She felt the request was far too much.
Although they did not know why this person had done it, they had indeed just been saved from the monsters’ maws by her.
They hadn’t even had time to say thank you, yet in the blink of an eye, she was asking the other party to step into even deeper danger for an unrelated noble young lady?
On what grounds?
One had to understand that it was already a blessing that the Witch didn’t kill them.
How could she—
However, to everyone’s surprise, the Witch nodded slightly.
“Fine, I will go save her.”
Her voice carried no discernable emotion, as if she were merely agreeing to a trivial matter.
Viola and Lily’s eyes widened instantly.
Before a sense of unbelievable ecstasy could fully surge up, they were frozen by her next words.
“You three had best find a place to hide right now. Whether it is a basement or a warehouse, the more hidden, the better.”
She looked up toward the other parts of the city, where organized shouts and the clashing of weapons began to drift over.
“The City Guard from other districts will soon be clearing this area. When that time comes, these remaining monsters will be dealt with, and you…”
Her gaze landed once more on Irene’s blood-stained Inquisitor uniform, her meaning clear.
“It is best if you are not discovered to have had any contact with a Witch like me.”
As her voice fell, before the three could react, those night-colored robes fluttered slightly.
Celeste’s figure, just as when she appeared, silently merged into the darkness and vanished completely.
In the alley, while Viola and Lily began to look for a shelter according to her words, Irene stood stunned in place.
She touched her own body, and then a flash of complex emotion crossed her eyes.
‘Nightingale, the terrifying Witch capable of making infants stop crying?!’
‘Perhaps… it was all just a rumor.’
—
After leaving Viola and the others, Celeste transformed back into Tia and continued toward the Earl Harris Manor.
The closer she got to the manor, the more vigorous the fires burning nearby became.
More corpses of humans and experimental subjects lay on the ground.
Especially when she reached the street in front of the manor, the road was already piled high with bodies.
Just as she was about to bypass the street and enter the manor, a sharp sound of breaking air attacked from above!
Tia’s body stiffened, and she instinctively wanted to dodge, only to see the black shadow sliced in half by a sword.
Blood fell like rain, and beside it, a familiar graceful figure drifted down like a feather.
She was not far from Tia, so even at night, the latter could clearly see her face.
“Mephia? Why are you here?!”
Tia was somewhat surprised, while Mephia turned to look at her, explaining flatly:
“I’ve been killing these experimental subjects all the way here. Their movements follow a specific trajectory, and they seem to be gathering here. As for you,” her gaze quickly swept over Tia’s body, confirming there were no obvious wounds or signs of distress, “you aren’t injured, are you?”
Tia shook her head subconsciously, her light blue hair swaying slightly with the movement, her tone carrying a hint of relief.
“No, my luck was decent. I took a few detours and didn’t encounter many monsters.”
Mephia watched her quietly for 2 seconds.
In her golden eyes, it seemed as if a different meaning was brewing.
After a long while, she murmured almost inaudibly, “Then it truly was unnecessary for me to worry.”
The words were as light as a self-muttering, their meaning ambiguous.
“What’s next?”
Tia looked toward the fires rising from the direction of the manor, her tone unable to hide her urgency.
“Are you going to keep killing those experimental subjects?”
“No.”
Mephia shook her head.
“The City Guards from the East District and the North District have reacted. With them around, these scattered experimental subjects won’t be able to stay rowdy for much longer.”
“So, let us go. I will go with you to find your father.”
The Earl Harris Manor was clearly one of the places where the fighting was most intense.
The meticulously tended garden had been reduced to scorched earth, the sculptural fountains were shattered across the ground, and the beautiful exterior walls were covered in shocking cracks and char marks.
Many corpses lay scattered across the ground—corpses of servants, corpses of the City Guard, but most were those of the grotesquely twisted experimental subjects.
When Tia entered the manor, the fighting had not yet ceased.
In the courtyard at the rear of the manor, sporadic sounds of combat and roars still drifted over.
Tia hurriedly reached the courtyard and saw two groups of people facing off.
One side was Earl Harris, and he was surrounded by several guards.
“Father!”
Hearing the call, Earl Harris slowly turned his head.
When he saw Tia running through the smoke, his eyes narrowed slightly.
Immediately after, he growled with a voice laced with anger:
“Tia, where on earth have you been?”
As soon as he spoke, he saw Mephia following closely behind Tia.
Especially upon seeing her Inquisitor uniform, which was not stained with a single drop of blood, the dissatisfaction in the depths of his eyes grew even stronger.