Morthveil's night had ushered in a new dawn of utter devastation.
The carnage was so horrifying that no one could utter a word. Even those brave enough to try found their voices trapped in their throats. And if any sound did manage to escape, the Dominion Sound Nullification Barrier rendered it completely inaudible to the outside world.
Morthveil was a city where people pursued eternal or extended life by following the path laid down by their idol, Rotveil—through the ritual practice of cannibalism. Today, the people of Morthveil had themselves become the cattle led to the butcher's block.
In truth, Rotveil had taught them that the road to prolonged life passed through death itself. "If one person's worthless life can extend another's existence," he proclaimed, "then that person must willingly offer their life for the sake of others. In this world, no one else has the right to decide what is right or wrong—only you do. Life is a curse granted to us for a brief time, yet we greedily cling to it, desperate for more. But death… death is salvation. If you die, you find eternal peace. If you kill, you gain extended life."
In simpler terms, Rotveil had discovered a method to extend life: by slaughtering and consuming another living being—be it animal or human.
The only side effects of this cannibalism, especially when it involved infants, were devastating. Whether male or female, practitioners became impotent and infertile. Their bodies began to rot from within. Open sores, boils, and festering wounds erupted across their skin. Yet there was one chilling advantage: the life force of the victim was absorbed, dramatically increasing the consumer's lifespan. Additionally, the constant presence of toxins from decaying flesh made their bodies immune to most external poisons.
This was why the Church of Toxara bore the motto:
**"Life is a curse and death is eternal salvation."**
From today's perspective, however, it seemed Lucifer and his soldiers were truly granting the followers of Toxara that promised eternal salvation.
While delivering this salvation to Morthveil's people, the night had silently bled into dawn, and dawn into morning—without anyone noticing.
Lucifer's soldiers had hunted with the precision of predators. One by one, they dragged the rotting citizens of Morthveil before their master. Lucifer, playing the role of an honest butcher, converted them into human slop. Flesh, bones, blood, pus—everything that reached Lucifer was ground and melted down into a thick, grotesque slurry of human remains.
By morning, the few surviving residents of Morthveil began to notice the horrifying abnormality.
The butcher shops that normally opened at dawn to sell human and animal flesh were shuttered. The streets where newborn infants were traded like pork or beef lay eerily empty. Not a single person wrapped in white bandages—the signature look of Morthveil's rotting cannibals—was visible.
Instead, the streets were patrolled by countless soldiers clad in full-plate armor. Some were seen dragging local residents away to unknown destinations.
No one in Morthveil could speak without their voice being silenced. The pungent, metallic stench of blood and rotting meat, already unbearable, had grown a thousand times stronger.
Around the Church of Toxara, the usual crowds of locals had vanished. Only a handful remained.
This wasn't just alarming for the residents of Morthveil—it baffled Rotveil himself.
That morning, no one had shown up for his so-called sacred ritual, where followers sacrificed infants of every species and offered their still-beating hearts to Rotveil to devour. No new poisons were being brewed in his church. Not even a single worshipper had come to revere him.
Inside the Church of Toxara, Rotveil considered himself a god and had commissioned a massive idol in his own likeness. The irony was grotesque: he was both god and pope of his own church. After every cannibalistic ritual, he would revel in being worshipped by his followers alongside his idol. But today, none of that was happening.
The entire city of Morthveil lay deathly silent. The only difference was that the once-pristine roads were now rivers of thick, coagulated blood. Floating in these crimson streams were mutilated body parts—severed limbs, torn torsos, and shattered skulls—clearly visible.
By noon, unknown soldiers had completely encircled the vicinity of the church.
The air reeked with a nauseating mix of pungent decay, metallic blood, and the sickly-sweet stench of rotting human flesh. The odor was so vile that even the man-eating locals of Morthveil were vomiting uncontrollably. It felt less like their city and more like the 18th layer of Hell itself.
The atmosphere was oppressively quiet—until suddenly, the sharp sound of fingers snapping echoed through the streets. The Dominion Sound Nullification Barrier shattered and dissipated like smoke.
In that instant, the screams of the people became crystal clear.
"Uuuwaaahhh!"
"What the hell is happening?!"
"Who are these soldiers?!"
"Blood… so much blood… where is it coming from?!"
"Look! There are body parts mixed in with the blood!"
"Hey, Koderma didn't come to collect the livestock meat today…"
"You're worried about meat?! Can't you see what's going on here?! And who the hell are these soldiers?!"
"Forget that! Listen… I can hear my own voice now. Since morning, nothing I said was audible!"
"It feels like someone slaughtered a bunch of people and just left the meat to rot. If they cut it up, why didn't they eat it all?"
The white-bandage-wrapped, rotten-skinned residents of Morthveil began voicing their confusion. Some were still obsessed with human meat sales, others demanded to know the source of the overpowering stench, while some questioned why the soldiers had them surrounded or where their neighbors were being dragged away to.
As they argued among themselves, a new sound emerged—faint at first, then growing steadily louder. It was the sickening scrape of a sharp object being dragged across the ground, accompanied by the heavy, rhythmic thud of footsteps.
"SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE…"
"Thap… Thup… Thap… Thup… Thap… Thup… Thap… Thup…"
The grating screech of metal on stone and the deliberate footsteps continued without pause.
Slowly, a black silhouette appeared in the distance. As it drew closer, its form became clearer, the dark color shifting and glistening under the light.
A man was approaching the Church of Toxara.
He wore a black sacrificial robe, now soaked and heavy with blood, turned a dark, blackish-red. The edges of the robe were caked with congealed animal fat and human grease—the kind that splatters when butchering livestock… or people. In his hand, he carried a massive one-and-a-half-meter cleaver, pitch black, its razor-sharp edge stained with large, dripping clots of fresh blood.
A nauseating, rotten stench emanated from him—far worse than anything the people of Morthveil had ever smelled. Even the locals, accustomed to decay, recoiled and gagged.
This man in the blood-drenched black sacrificial robe, wielding the gore-covered cleaver, was none other than Lucifer himself.
As Lucifer neared the church, one resident pointed a trembling finger at him and shouted, "Who are you?! Where did you come from?!"
There was no reply.
Lucifer simply stared at him with blood-filled, inhuman eyes. In a blur of grotesque speed, he closed the distance. The cleaver flashed with a sickening **"SHRIIINNNNGGGGG!"**
One clean, brutal stroke sliced the resident cleanly in half from head to groin. The two halves of his body fell apart with a wet, meaty slap, internal organs spilling out in a steaming pile of guts, blood, and viscera. The man was dead before he could even scream.
Seeing her brother butchered, Vex snarled, "You shouldn't have killed Andy… I'll make you pay for this!"
Lucifer's response was immediate. His cleaver swung again in a vicious arc. Vex's body was split apart just as cleanly—her torso and legs separating with a gruesome spray of blood and shredded flesh. Her organs slid out onto the blood-soaked street with a sickening squelch.
The growing commotion outside finally alerted Rotveil. The sound issue had apparently been resolved, and the agonized screams piqued his curiosity. He stepped out onto his papal balcony to see what was happening.
The sight that greeted him was nightmarish.
As far as the eye could see, the streets were flooded with thick, coagulated blood. The air was thick with the stench of death. The church was surrounded in a perfect circular formation by heavily armored soldiers.
Standing directly in front of the church was a man in a black robe, holding a cleaver still dripping with fresh blood. At his feet lay two perfectly bisected corpses, their innards exposed, blood pooling around them in dark, glistening puddles.