Chapter 495: What Are Those?

Illustration for Carmela is available in the character description page!

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But before he could do anything about the cult, Cassius knew he had to take care of the hanging children first.

He approached the first of the hanging bodies, a small boy no older than eight.

The chain groaned faintly as Cassius lifted him down and the child’s skin was cold, eerily so smooth like porcelain drained of all warmth, but his hands did not tremble.

He simply caught the limp body, unhooked the chain, and laid him down gently. Then another. And another. One by one, he lowered them, his movements mechanical, calm, careful.

Behind him, Carmela lingered at the doorway. The heavy stench hit her again, and she gagged, covering her mouth.

Even for someone of her kind, who had seen years of violence, this was too much. The smell of death here wasn’t just rot—it was desecration, an echo of agony that lingered in the air.

Cassius, however, was eerily unbothered. His eyes were dim, reflective, detached—as though this wasn’t the first time he had handled something like this.

He whispered something under his breath every time he touched a body, a quiet prayer, a promise, words Carmela couldn’t quite make out.

When all the children had been laid down, he reached into his storage ring. The faint shimmer of spatial magic illuminated the room, and one by one, the bodies vanished, disappearing into the ring’s inner space.

Carmela’s voice finally broke the silence.

"What are you doing?" She asked, her tone sharp but uncertain. "Why are you...keeping them in there?"

Cassius let out a slow breath before straightening up, wiping his hands on a cloth he pulled from his coat.

"I can’t leave them here." He said simply. His voice was low, resolute. "They deserve better than this. They deserve to be returned to the families who loved them—or at least a proper burial. Leaving them here would be cruel. This place has stolen enough from them already."

For a moment, Carmela could only stare. His words struck her like a quiet hammer to the chest.

It wasn’t pity, it was respect. And somehow, it made him seem...stranger.

Nobles weren’t supposed to care. They didn’t touch death; they paid others to clean it away. But here he was, collecting the bodies himself.

"You really are...strange." She murmured finally, half to herself.

"I’ve been called worse." Cassius offered a faint, humorless smile as he checked if there was anything else he missed.

He then turned toward the exit, motioning for her to follow.

"Come on. There’s still work to do."

As they stepped back into the corridor, he spoke again, his tone shifting back to sharp focus.

"Right now, what I need to know now is where the deepest point of this labyrinth is. The most important part, the heart of the structure."

"Do you where that part is?"

Carmela frowned, thinking.

"I don’t know much about this place." She admitted. "They had me bound the entire time I was here. I couldn’t move freely. I only know that we’re far underground. But..."

Her eyes darkened.

"There is one place deeper still. The leader’s chamber. His office, I suppose. I was taken there once—before they chained me up."

Cassius’s expression sharpened. "The leader?"

She nodded.

"Xerath. That’s what they called him. He spoke to me...about vampires. About how noble our bloodline was, how fortunate he was to have found one of my kind still alive."

Her lip curled with disgust.

"He said he would use my blood to ’revive the progenitor,’ bring back the ancient ancestor of our race, to ’restore the age of blood.’ He kept rambling about destiny and salvation for my kind. I thought he was insane."

Cassius tilted his head slightly.

"So...he meant to use you as a key. A catalyst."

"Maybe." Carmela crossed her arms, her gaze distant. "I didn’t listen for long. He and his followers ambushed me out of nowhere when I was passing through the borderlands. There were over a hundred of them." Her voice grew harder. "I killed seventy-eight before they overwhelmed me."

Cassius blinked. "Seventy-eight?"

Her lips curved into something that wasn’t quite a smile. "They were fragile. And slow."

But the faint pride in her tone quickly disappeared.

"Still, they captured me. Bound me like some kind of offering and left me to rot. Said my time would come when the moon reached its zenith."

Cassius studied her for a moment but didn’t press further.

"We’ll think about that later." He said. "After what we’re about to do, none of this will matter anymore. Lead me to this Xerath’s chamber."

But before they departed, Cassius went over to the few children left and crouched down to their level.

"Listen to me, all of you." He said quietly, placing a reassuring hand on the shoulder of the nearest child. "When Julie and Skadi come back, tell them that Carmela and I will be back soon."

"Until then, no one—and I mean no one—is to come back down here. Stay outside, keep close to each other, and wait for us. Understand?"

A small chorus of nods followed, hesitant but trusting.

Cassius smiled faintly and added. "Good. You’ve all been so brave. Keep being brave a little longer."

"Now..." He said as he stood up and looked towards Carmela. "Let’s finish this."

Carmela nodded grimly and started forward. They moved quickly through the corridors, ascending narrow stairs carved from rough stone until they reached a small side chamber filled with dark robes.

Carmela grabbed two and tossed one at him.

"Put it on." She said. "We’ll blend in better."

Cassius slipped the robe over his armor, pulling the hood low. Together, they climbed the final flight of stairs.

When they emerged, they found themselves overlooking a vast hall illuminated by red crystal lanterns.

Hundreds of cultists stood in a circle around a bloodstained altar. The air thrummed with dark energy, thick with the smell of blood magic.

At the center stood a bald man in crimson robes—his pale face twisted into a fanatic grin.

"It is time, my brothers!" He cried, spreading his arms. "The blood moon reaches its peak! Soon, our ancestor shall awaken! The progenitor shall rise, and with her, the world shall drown in crimson! The age of blood begins anew!"

The cultists around him began chanting, murmuring words in an ancient tongue.

Carmela’s eyes narrowed with hatred.

"That’s him." She whispered. "Xerath."

"Keep your head low." Cassius murmured. "You and I both stand out too much with out eyes. Let’s blend in, move with the crowd. If they notice us now, this will turn ugly fast."

Together, they slipped quietly into the crowd, their dark robes hiding them among the chanting sea of fanatics as the ritual to awaken the blood progenitor neared its peak.

But none of them spared Cassius or Carmela a second glance as they walked among them.

The fanatics were too consumed by their ritual to even notice. And those few who passed by barely looked up. In their minds, no outsider could have possibly breached this sanctum.

It was arrogance that no one could break their barrier—and it played perfectly into Cassius’s hands.

They walked through the hall’s side archway unnoticed and slipped into a dim corridor. The torches burned weaker here, their flames sputtering in the draft.

As they descended another flight of stairs, the chanting above them faded, replaced by the distant dripping of water and the low hum of something ominous below.

Then, just as they turned a corner, they spotted a group of cultists up ahead—five or six men clad in robes, whispering among themselves.

Before Cassius could even raise a hand to signal caution—Carmela moved.

She blurred.

Her body vanished in a streak of black and crimson.

The next second, a gurgled scream echoed through the narrow corridor. A blade flashed, her claws slicing through throats before any of them could utter a word.

One man barely turned before her hand punched clean through his chest, bursting out the other side in a spray of blood.

Another tried to run, but her heel crushed his skull against the wall with a sound like cracking porcelain.

It was over in seconds.

Carmela stood motionless in the aftermath, her breathing steady, her face expressionless. Blood dripped from her fingertips and stained her pale cheeks, glinting under the torchlight.

She looked utterly unfazed—cold, detached, and inhumanly composed.

Cassius watched her for a moment, then gave a low, amused chuckle as he stepped past the bodies.

"You really weren’t joking when you said you slaughtered all those men who tried to capture you." He said casually.

Carmela simply wiped a drop of blood from her chin with the back of her hand and ignored Cassius.

They moved forward and entered the next chamber.

The room was smaller, but packed with strange relics—ancient tomes stacked on the shelves, glass jars filled with dark fluids, and rows of alchemical tools that reeked faintly of iron and sulfur.

A man sat with his back to them at a large desk, scribbling something feverishly onto parchment.

Without even glancing up, he spoke in a rough voice.

"How’s the progress on the ritual? Has the blood reached its—"

He turned.

And froze.

The moment his eyes met Cassius’s, his face went pale. His lips parted, about to shout—but he never got the chance. Cassius was already there.

With one hand, he grabbed the man by the head and torso—and in a single, effortless twist, tore him apart.

Splurt!

Bone cracked, blood sprayed across the shelves, and the headless body collapsed onto the desk with a dull thud.

Carmela blinked. The sheer strength behind that movement and the way he’d ripped through flesh and bone as though it were nothing startled even her.

’He’s...dangerous.’ She thought. ’Much more than he lets on.’

But Cassius was already moving. He scanned the room for a moment, then knelt down and reached into his storage ring.

One after another, he began pulling out small rectangular objects—metallic bricks wrapped neatly in a strange gray-coated paper, faintly marked with sigils.

He started placing them methodically around the room—under tables, behind shelves, near the corners of the wall.

Carmela frowned, stepping closer. "What are those?"

She crouched down, curious, reaching out to pick one up.

But before her fingers could brush it, Cassius’s hand shot out, gripping her wrist tightly.

"Don’t." His voice was sharp, dead serious.

She froze, surprised by the sudden intensity in his tone.

"You touch that..." He said, his eyes locking on hers. "...and this entire mountain will come down on our heads."

She was surprised by such a remark and couldn’t help but ask, "What...are these things?"

"Let’s just say..."

Cassius replied quietly, straightening up as he placed another on the far end of the room.

"...they’re the kind of things you use when you want to erase an entire place from existence.