Valerie laid in her tub within the cabin. She had used magic to heat up the water to make it hot enough for her to relax in. Her mind was still flustered about the earlier events, and she hoped a hot bath would help her unwind. She brought up her fingers to touch lips again and turned bright red as she remembered the softness of William's lips. "What am I doing? It was just an accident. The moron didn't know how the ritual worked!" She thought as she shook her head, trying to clear away the feeling. "He is kind of handsome, though, for a human." She closed her eyes, trying to rest in the bath as she couldn't shake off the tiredness of being in stone for so long. Just as she felt she could fall asleep, she felt an explosion of energy similar to her own. She stood up in the tub and wrapped a towel around her.

"Could it be another Maldrossi survivor?" She thought as she attempted to probe her surroundings. She focused her magic and started expanding it over her surroundings closer and closer to the energy until it landed in the village. Valerie found a dense black fog covering a section of the village. She peered as deep as she could into it until she found its source. "Well, this is interesting." She thought. Valerie immediately grabbed clothes and armor and donned them as well as her cloak to hide her horns. She was going to pay a visit to the village.

William's body had gotten back up on his feet and removed Divinity Eater from his back and gripped it in his left hand. Shawn, who was the closest, saw the amber eye in the sword as it looked directly at him. William had also turned to face Shawn with his eyes now matching the blade's eye in color.

"G-g-g-get him, he's a monster! He has to be killed!" David shouted while terrified as sweat had begun to pour down his face. Shawn was the first to move to William as he attempted to bring down his axe on him.

Too slow.

William's body leaned back and allowed the axe's blade to miss him and slam into the ground. Divinity Eater blinked as it had William bring his arms up quickly, causing the blade to cut both of Shawn's arms to be cut cleanly off. Shawn screamed in terror, holding up his stumps. He looked to his brothers for assistance. At the same time, Divinity Eater was plunged through his chest and quickly pulled out. His body fell down to the ground, lifeless.

"He killed him! He actually killed him!"

"Oh, sweet Omnia, save us!"

"William, don't do this!"

"We weren't actually going to do anything, we swear!"

Their voices meant nothing to him now as Divinity Eater was moving the body, William was forced into the role of a passenger in his own body. He moved to his next targets. He rushed at the remaining woodcutter's as each brother attempted to get out of his way. William killed them effortlessly as he slashed through both Gabe and Nicholas. Their bodies being cut into halves instead of the whole they used to be. Raymond attempted to run into the fog, but it acted as a wall as he slammed on it, screaming for help, he continued to hit against it. Suddenly, he felt his center of gravity change rapidly as he hit the ground, and he realized his head had been removed from his body as he looked at his body still holding onto the fog wall.

Four people had already been killed. Cameron and Jake were cowering together in a corner, holding each other as Joshua gathered the last of his courage and ran up behind William, slamming his head with a wooden club. The club shattered over his head, but there was no visible damage on William. Tendrils shot out from Divinity Eater and pierced through Joshua before bringing him over and in front of William. They continued burrowing into Joshua's chest before retracting with his heart removed. It crushed it in front of him, and his body fell to the ground. He then walked over to where Cameron and Jake were cowering as tears fell down their face.

"William please! I'm all my mother has, and she's ill! If I die, who will take care of her?" Cameron pleaded.

"It's all our fault, Cameron; if we didn't do as David said, we wouldn't have gotten into trouble like this." Jake held on to Cameron as he cried.

William's hands shook as he attempted to resist. Still, he was soon overpowered by the darkness in his heart again as he pictured what they were going to do alongside David to Sam. The images flew through his head, and he recalled the same evil smile on their faces as the rest of the boys.

He lifted his blade in the air and slashed through both of them at the same time. Their bodies fell entangled with each other as they bled out on the ground. Divinity Eater was growing bored at their lack of resistance as it hungered for true combat.

One left.

The blood on Divinity Eater was absorbed into the blade, making it clean once again as the eye pulsed. William started walking over to David, his golden-amber eyes filled with hatred as he glared at his last enemy. David didn't know what to do as he panicked. He moved to grab Sam as a hostage, but before he could even get his hand on him, a wave of the black tendrils shot forward, creating a wall between David and Sam. It had also severed David's right arm from the rest of his body.

"You monster! Look what you've done to my arm!" David screamed as blood poured out of his stump of an arm. "You won't get away with this; my father will kill you and this disgrace of a man."

"What are he and the guardsman going to do against me! There only humans!" William spoke sinisterly, the voice coming from his mouth, not the one he regularly recognized.

There only humans? What am I saying right now? What's going on with me?

William grabbed his head with his right hand. It had started pounding, and he was starting to become aware of what he had done. A flash of silver snapped him back to what was going on. David had taken advantage of William's confusion and slashed the cleaver across his face.

"How'd you like that! There's more where that came-" David stopped his taunting, horrified as the deep cut across William's face had begun to heal at an alarming rate. "That's not fair. That's not fair!" He shouted.

Divinity Eater had enough of David's shouting and enough of David in general.

"You had this coming, if not from this one, then from someone else. Whenever the weak pretend to be strong and think highly of themselves. They become extremely competent in getting others killed. This boy even tried to protect you after the threats you made against his friend. I will kill this weakness inside him, so he doesn't consider such things again." William plunged Divinity Eater through David's midsection and drove him into the ground. He pulled the blade up as viscously as possible, causing blood to spurt out of David as he attempted to cover his wounds in a futile attempt. He screamed the entire time until he couldn't anymore.

William walked over to Sam to make sure none of his injuries were serious as the fog surrounding them, and the fog in his mind had begun to clear. His eyes had returned to their original brown color too. He looked as he saw the bloodshed he had caused, bodies torn apart and mangled because of him. He sat down next to Sam and placed Divinity Eater on the ground. He looked over himself and saw that his hands and tunic were covered in blood.

What have I done? I killed people. Was I really fighting to protect Sam? Or was this to satisfy some kind of bloodlust I've gained.

William began to tear up as he realized that it wouldn't be long before the town would be put into a panic once the morning came.

They'll find the bodies, and then they'll search everywhere, and eventually, they'll find me and this cursed blade. It's all over.

"You really know how to make a mess." William looked up to find who had said that to him and saw Valerie with her cloak on. The only thing that would give her away from that she wasn't human was that her tail sometimes lifted the back of the cloak up. She made her way over to William and immediately started healing Sam's wounds.

"Look at you, going and healing a human without even being asked to." William sniffled.

"I'll stop right now, you know. The only reason I'm doing this is that this human is important to you. Your job is to look out for me, but that doesn't mean I won't help you." Valerie spoke softly.

"I appreciate it, but I'm pretty sure once the morning arrives, I'm done for. I'm sorry, but you are going to have to find a new knight," William said dejectedly.

"Don't be so quick to give up just yet. I chose you because I know you can become capable. I'll get rid of all the evidence here, and the villagers will have no idea that you did this." She looked him dead in the eyes trying to portray her sincerity.

"Do I deserve to get away with this? I killed so many people, and they all had families." William grabbed Valerie's hands. "They were going to do something horrible to Sam! I couldn't allow it to happen, and they were constantly hurting him! Before I knew it, Divinity Eater had taken over me!" He couldn't stop crying as he didn't know whether he was trying to convince Valerie or himself that he wasn't at fault.

Valerie did her best not to automatically recoil from someone being so physical with her. She thought that she had to be delicate with him as he wasn't like her. He didn't grow up during a war and have to make decisions that took lives every day as she had. She knew Divinity Eater was affecting his actions as it had done with its previous masters. For that, she felt some responsibility.

"It's okay; let me help carry the burden of your pain and guilt as if it was my own. Even if everyone you know turns their backs on you, I will remain by your side. I'll help you control the blade, and you'll protect me. Is that fair?" She wrapped her arms around him and brought his head down to her chest. She held him close as he nodded and continued to cry. Valerie knew it would be a long night for her if she was going to clean away this scene before the village had woken up. But she would hold him as long as he needed it.

Once William had regained his composure, Valerie had him take Sam home and ordered William to return to his home and to go to sleep, promising him that she would take care of everything. After she confirmed that he was leaving, she got to work. She began summoning shadow servants that emerged from her spellbook to pick up the bodies and clean the streets, instructing them to remove anything that had blood or human body parts from the area.

"He really did do a number on these guys," Valerie thought as she kicked over David's corpse as the servants finished cleaning up some of the other bodies. They brought them out deep into the forest and dug a mass grave as they poured in the bodies and scattered belongings. She had a couple of servants watching the different streets and alleys that led toward the east gate to warn her if there would be trouble. Fortunately, the guards never did patrol the east gate. When the morning came, nothing would show that a tragedy had happened there except for a locket belonging to Sam Cragore that had fallen off his body in the alley.