The three children landed in the treetops. Erick's torso was resting on a branch, his legs dangling; his arms held the others, holding their wrists tightly.

Vincent swung his feet to another branch and climbed up to help the other two children to safety. The two boys pulled Aubrey's arm from different branches and managed to get her up next to Erick, then hurried down, preventing their combined weight from causing the branches to collapse.

The first to reach the ground was Erick, passing from one tree to another between its branches without any difficulty. Then Aubrey came down, being caught in her last jump by the boy. Finally Vincent descended, with the assistance of both of them from high up, who extended their hands to him kindly, being one meter from the forest’s floor Erick extended both arms to carry him to the ground, smiling at him.

“Just a little more,” confused Vincent accepted the help and let the young man put him down. “Done.”

“Are you hurt or something?” Bry asked him, leaning down to look him straight in the face.

«They saw me earlier, so… Why?» The little boy scratched his cheek thoughtfully. It took him a few seconds to answer.

“Ah, no, I’m fine.”

Erick rubbed his neck and flexed his arms, sore from the pull and effort of having caught both children when they fell. Noticing the confusion on the little one's face, he tried to clarify his intentions.

“Hey kid, uh… it's obvious that you're very strong and all, but it's better that we get out of Klaus' way.”

“Klaus?” he remembered the hunters' conversation again “Klaus Cross? He's the abdicator, right?”

“Please, don't say that to his face.”

Now it was Aubrey who seemed confused, feeling excluded by the conversation she changed the subject.

“Speaking of names…” she turned to the little boy “What's yours?”

“Mr. Park told me it was Jack but for me it's Vincent. You can call me Vince.”

Jack, an uncomfortably familiar name for Erick, a chill ran down his spine upon hearing it.

Similarly, Aubrey reacted to the mention of Mr. Park, as did Jake who, once again, interrupted the story with his start.

“PARK?!”

“Who is that?”

The boy was surprised by his cousin's reaction. Klaus, now sitting next to Erick, looked from one to the other, staying out of the exchange, letting Jake decide what to say.

“No, no one. Just clarifying, I thought I heard wrong. Go on.”

The young officer looked to the side, avoiding confrontation. His boyfriend remained silent, glancing at him out of the corner of his eye and accepting his decision.

As the three children found themselves far from any marked path, they felt lost, they looked around trying to spot some landmark, without success.

“So where do we go now?” - Bry slowly advanced towards a clearing.

Erick pulled the arms of both children, hiding behind some bushes. Putting a finger to his mouth he indicated that they should remain silent.

Skidding on the ground, Klaus fell into the nearby clearing, followed by the demon who loomed over the forest’s tree line, noticeably damaged; with large chunks missing, almost no mane, with his purple blood pouring from his open flesh, dancing like tree branches in the wind.

The vampire's arms were wrapped in stalactites of his own creation, the tips of his ears were further elongated with crystal decorations, as were his cheeks and parts of his forehead, as if the crystalline fragments arose from his sweat.

Completely enraged, the Diagvelia crushed his enemy, with a slap to the ground so hard that it raised the dirt from the entire clearing. Seeing this, Bry and Vince jumped in surprise.

“HUH?!”

“He crushed him?”

Erick gave them another tug, returning them behind the bush, shushing to silence them again.

At the same time a wall of crystal emerged from beneath the Diagvelia's hand, passing through it in a violent explosion of blood and flesh. A hole opened in the middle of the wall from which Klaus jumped, running up his arm until he reached his shoulder.

With a jump he positioned himself over the demon's face and, using the crystal that covered his right arm, penetrated one of its eyes, expanding crystalline hooks inside it. The entity raised its other arm in pain, pushing the vampire with it and, consequently, pulling his own eye socket empty.

Klaus raised his arm to make sure to cut the nerves still attached to both parts, propelling himself with the wind to create a greater distance with his enemy.

The blood from the Diagvelia's wounded hand stirred, forming once again pulsating appendages that tried to surround the vampire; this made the covering of his arm explode, bursting the eye and what was left of the demon's hand.

With a terrible screech, the demon let out all of its blood and all of its internal structure through its elongated mouth, turning on itself. Its bones, now distributed throughout the cluster of organs, transformed into metallic-looking spikes, its insides curved and began to generate new skin, forming a giant wheel.

“So it's pride…” Klaus said to himself as he stepped back, uncovering his other arm.

Multiple eyes opened across the surface of the disk, being able to see the two little ones who were once again peeking out from between the bushes.

“I told them not to peek out” Erick whispered after hiding them again, but it was too late.

The Diagvelia turned quickly in their direction. When Erick realized this, he grabbed Bry's wrist and Vince's collar, dragging them, putting them out of danger milliseconds away from being run over.

As the demon corrected its course, the vampire created a wall in front of it to block its path. As the entity jumped over its obstacle, Erick pushed the two children, making them run in opposite directions while he continued straight ahead.

“Spread out!”

The demon continued to attack the child in the middle. Seeing this, the other two ran back in an attempt to save him.

«It was obvious that he wouldn't come for me» Vincent prepared to take out his mallet again. «Going for him specifically is a very obvious trap... and yet the three of us are falling for it» he looked at the girl running at the same pace towards the demon, «it's almost embarrassing», but when he turned to see the vampire, he was inert «Huh?».

Having spent a good part of his childhood, from the age of six, on the streets, having only Jake who was also a child at the time, and then being raised with the military; one of the first things that Erick had learned, even before reading and counting, was to run away. From whatever, wherever and however.

With such environment he developed great skill in dodging, jumping, climbing and moving on any terrain; It was because of this skill that he had been able to land safely and catch the other children when they launched themselves off the platform, and now he used it to run right up a tree side, dodge a direct attack from the Diagvelia and jump back to run over his attacker without even a scratch. He fell in front of the vampire, ducking his head to let a stalactite that emerged from his guardian's arm pass by, but now his enemy was able to create holes in his mass to evade the attacks.

Erick took advantage of the distraction of the crystal blasts and, focused on getting the other children to safety and letting the adult take charge, just as Klaus and Jake had indoctrinated him, he grabbed them by the wrists and ran with them in the opposite direction of the fierce wheel.

“I told you to split!”

After evading another stalactite, the demon imposed itself on Klaus, twisting its figure like a snake. The man used his wind to propel himself backwards, still getting scratched by it on the abdomen below the navel, penetrating the muscle up to two centimeters deep.

As if it were a paper cut, Klaus reacted with simple annoyance, lifting his shirt to avoid staining it with his thick, dark blood.

“Ugh, not my clothes."

Noticing the dramatic dripping on his guardian’s torso, Erick stopped running, frozen in place.

Nausea, dizziness, confusion, his chest ached, his heart was racing, his ears were ringing, he couldn't breathe, his whole body was shaking. The terrible feeling of an impending tragedy took hold of him.

With a loud blow he covered his mouth, trying to suppress the crisis that emerged from within him. Without success.

With each heartbeat his vision became darker, he could feel the veins in his forehead, hands and neck flowing, as if they were going to explode, a void in his stomach was creeping its way in, pushing his insides aside. Vincent and Aubrey watched Erick, not understanding what was happening. They shared confused looks.

“Why did he stop?”

“I don’t know.”

Klaus now focused on his little one. He covered his abdomen and extended a hand towards him.

“It’s okay, calm down, sweetheart! It’s just superficial!”

The nausea was getting worse, the boy pressed his face hard enough to stamp his nails on his cheeks. The taste of bile reached his mouth, forcing him to let go of himself with its unpleasant flavor. Cold sweat ran down his face, dripping on the floor.

Unable to take his eyes off his wounded guardian, he began to hallucinate; the vampire's figure became intertwined with that of a man whose name he had forgotten, the same one who appeared, dying, in his nightmares.