“And now Malachi’s been dealt with for good,” Vaina sighed in relief. The air still felt heavily thick to breathe in with the sacred forest now drenched in crimson splatters, the atmosphere eerily daunting after the Messenger’s screams had become permanently stilled. “But I still feel the disturbance, so the impure soul must’ve been another. As for The Watcher, I don’t know how we’d reach them since they’re cloaked in secrecy, even for those familiar with the black market. But if they’re the impure soul, it’d make a lot of sense since they hide their tracks fairly well.”

“Is it because of your ties with your father?” Renatus asked, holding up the glorious, winged helmet that radiantly shone gold beneath the gentle rays of sunlight, now stained in thick, dried blood.  

Vaina hummed in affirmation, standing further in the forest trail waiting for him to follow her. “Some people believe he’s a fake god since his ideals supposedly don’t align with what Ylipeste was built on. He became an extremist ever since the impurity issue began, especially since he couldn’t use his powers, even that of omnipotence, to cleanse or banish the source itself.”  

“It’s almost unbelievable, really,” Renatus commented, his hands resting behind his head as they made their way deeper into the forest, the strong minty and earthy scent of moist dirt mixed in with some exotic plants sharply filling his nostrils. “The strongest being in the universe, unable to pluck one bad apple from the batch.”

“His own people started turning against him after his ideology of perfectionism imposed an impossible standard for the angels - only the Higher Angels could possibly comply with such a thing. Then again, they were made to serve him, stripped of any individuality,” Vaina added, suddenly shuddering at her own thoughts. “Some angels even tried to escape Ylipeste by trying to become daemons instead, through eating their flesh. Hoping to be exiled and dragged to Kaufernis to escape it all.”

Renatus raised an eyebrow, unsure if he heard that right. They hoped to be exiled?

The thought alone irked him, a wave of traumatic memories flashing before his eyes - waking up to find himself in a foreign place, his naked body battered and bruised so deeply that he could barely drag himself towards the shabby shed for shelter against the relentless wind, a trail of blood staining the pale stone path. Not to mention the fresh wound of his torn wing unbearably stinging his back with the harsh chills of the night puncturing it with cool nips against his bare skin, his blood rushing in a desperate attempt to keep him warm, as he clung tightly onto the Heavenly Blades, the only salvation he had against the cruel world. His eyes stung as the tears streamed from his aching cheeks, its warmth unmatched until a being of immeasurable beauty amongst the Realms appeared before him. Were they an angel? No, there were no such things in a wretched place like this. Their tender hand wiped away his tears and whisked him away from the unforgiving harshness of the night, enveloping him into the safety of their embrace.

Renatus blinked and returned from his trip down nightmare lane, noticing Vaina’s beady eyes on him.

“How’d they manage to get daemon flesh into Ylipeste? You guys hate even the mere thought of us.” 

Vaina’s curious gaze turned into one of disgust as she looked ahead, the mere thought of the actual process stirring her mind. “The Higher Authority collects corpses from the Underworld after their assassins deal with their targets, where they’re then sold to Ylipeste’s black market in hopes to cure the impurity, to no avail. The blight caused the tainted to become cannibals in hopes to purify themselves, so now they’ve had to add fake angel wings onto the corpses to deal with it.”

Renatus’ eyes widened in genuine surprise. He never thought about how they cleaned up after him whenever he slew his targets, believing that they magically disintegrated after a while. He’d always done a relatively clean job, so it was mainly just the corpse itself left to be dealt with. He would sometimes check on them out of curiosity and even tried to await and observe the process, but it always seemed to vanish moments after. “So that’s how the clean-up jobs are done…”

“What’d you say, Renb-” 

Her gentle voice quickly turned into a shrill screech that echoed in the depths of the forest, a circular beam of light whisking her away as two small, winged folk winked at Renatus before vanishing in thin air. He briefly looked down where she stood, noting the mushrooms and dainty flowers that spread in a circular shape.

A faerie ring.

They were portals to the faerie Realm, except they weren’t made for regular beings to travel through - rather, they were traps made to slaughter and feed on their vulnerable prey. Even he himself took care to avoid falling into such a thing, as everyone knew that the faerie folk were not to be messed with, mostly due to their capacity of being rather annoying creatures to reason with. Angels were supposedly premium meat in their eyes, gnawing on their rare flesh right to the bone.

“VAINA!” he exclaimed, viciously slashing through the greenery with his blades that continued to shroud his field of vision.

The sharp edges of leaves continued to scrape against his skin, with the occasional tree branch flinging into the air with each hack of his blades. He couldn’t afford to lose her now - especially not with her tyrant of a father still breathing his rotten breaths, looking to use the Realms as his personal plaything. The mere thought of him fuelled his desperation, streams of sweat dripping along his skin as his slicing speed doubled, his feet carrying him as fast as they could muster along the uneven forest trail.

As he travelled deeper into the forest’s labyrinth of an abyss, he continued to cut into some shrubs that gradually became smaller the deeper he traversed, eventually revealing a small glowing river surrounded by small mushrooms that guided him into a smaller forest within, lit up with colourful bursts of light that looked like tiny fireworks from afar. The tree stumps were significantly smaller, as were the trees. He was definitely in the faerie Realm, noting how miniature his surroundings were despite how small Renatus was himself.

The flourishing plants shimmered beneath the blue-green light that shone through the canopies, providing them with a whimsical, ethereal glow. The colourful leaves soared in the air, carried away by the light breeze and appearing as a stream of rainbow lights from afar as he made his way into a small cave beneath it, its walls carved with intricate floral patterns with tall marble pillars holding up the high ceiling. He followed the warm light that invited him to the other side of the corridor, immediately noticing the shift in temperature the further he went inside, a chilly wind nipping against his cheek.

It led to a miniature sanctum with hand sculpted statues of what he assumed to be faerie deities that loomed over a large circular stone plate that sank deeply into the ground with rune-shaped etchings made into it. Quiet giggles from the distance kept him on guard, his blades close to his body as he continued to step into the faerie territory. 

A blue faerie dashed towards him with beaming eyes from behind a curtain of trailing plants that strung from the stone walls, its cheeky smile unsettling him. 

“Hehehe. Are you lost, pure one?” it asked almost in a whisper, its lively voice sprinkled with a hint of deception, eyes sparkling as it filled with curiosity. It was so small that Renatus initially mistook it for an oversized dragonfly, especially with its tiny bare body and thin translucent wings that glittered beneath the small glowing orbs of light.

“Where did you take her?” he demanded, furrowing his eyebrows as the grip on his blades tightened immensely. He sensed that there were more of the little critters - about two or three of them - hiding somewhere between the nearby shrubs, observing his movement rather closely. “Tell me now, or I will slaughter you.”

A green faerie appeared before him, a wide grin on its face, lightly buzzing its brittle wings as it hovered in the air. “Hmm, hmm. Somewhere, anywhere that isn’t right here-”

Its neck was soon caught in between his rough fingers, crushing and rupturing its throat instantly, its bones becoming indistinguishably mushy from its squishy flesh. He glared at the nearby faeries who dared to look his way, now cowardly shivering behind the nearby shrubs.

“Stop the nonsense or I will crush all of you here and now,” he snarled, tightening his grip on the blades. He approached a nearby pink faerie that hid behind a statue, his silhouette towering over them from afar, instilling fear in them as the click-clacking of his boots resounded against the stone flooring.

“Halt! The violence is not necessary here, young fellow,” a deep voice commanded. A yellow faerie dressed in white clothing adorned with golden embroidered detailing emerged from above, a trail of cool light following their descent. “We will escort you to the lady. First, we must take you to our court.” 

“If this is another silly prank of yours, I’ll tear you apart as well,” Renatus growled, stopping in his tracks as the overly curious faeries used the opportunity to escape from danger. 

The priest-looking faerie smiled gently. “Are you aware of the rule of faeries?” 

“I honestly couldn’t care less, truthfully,” Renatus snapped. “Where did you take Vaina?”

“You’re an interesting one, that’s for certain. We advise you that we faeries cannot lie. That is the rule of faeries,” the faerie calmly replied. “Step forward into the stone elevator. We will take you to her in a moment. The faerie court seeks an audience with you.”