"Huh?"

Clara falls from the sky rapidly right after she stabs the bird. The talons' hold on her back has loosened. She struggles to break free from it as she falls.

'What should I do?'

She needs to do something, or else she will fall flat to the ground. Finally, she breaks free from the talons. She grabbed the bird's legs and started crawling up its body. She notices that the bird is completely frozen. Clara pushed the bird's body down while she stayed on top of it.

Then both of them fall right to the ground. Because Clara uses the dark bird to absorb most of the impact from the fa, she survives with only a few scratches. She rolls down from the bird to the ground.

 As she wanted to stand up, she felt pain in her left ankle. She took a good look at it and realized it was sprained. She immediately uses her healing magic on it.

As she was healing, she heard footsteps approaching and turned to look. She saw a man with black hair and eyes running towards her, his face worried. The man himself looks rough, as he was covered in blood and dust all around.

"Clara!"

Eryas hurriedly ran towards Clara. He saw her on the ground beside the massive body of a dark bird. As Eryas closes in, Clara notices that he speeds up his run.

"Clara! Behind me!"

She turned and was left surprised. The enormous black beak was open wide, almost swallowing her from behind. But then a black knife landed right on the bird's eye. The big black bird was left staggered.

Eryas jumps on top of its head. He pulls out the knife from his eyes and repeatedly stabs the bird's head. 

He keeps on stabbing until the bird finally stops struggling, and its head falls back to the ground, with Eryas on top.

Clara was surprised but immediately stood and ran towards Eryas.

"Eryas!"

"I'm fine," Eryas replied with a thumbs up behind the bird's head.

Clara circles the bird and sees Eryas under it. She helped him break free from it. She gasped as she saw his right hand.

"Your hand. Let me take a look."

She carefully holds it and unwraps the makeshift bandages.

"Ouch!"

"Sorry."

She was shocked to see the state of it.

"What happened?"

"A lot."

"It needs to be treated immediately. Otherwise you would lose an arm."

"Well that, ouch! Doesn't sound good at all."

"I cannot do much in this situation. You also cannot be treated with healing magic, so that's gonna make it worse."

Clara let go of Eryas's hands and left him. She wanders around the area looking for something inside all that debris. She was rummaging through the debris when she found what she was looking for.

She returns to Eryas, holding a metal rod.

"This is the least I could do."

As a healer, she always carries bandages around in case of an emergency. She indeed has healing magic, but it is not as powerful.

A severe injury could not be fully healed with her magic. So sometimes she still needs to use traditional treatments.

She cleaned off the wounds beforehand. Then she took out the bandage and wrapped it around Eryas' broken arm with the metal rod.

"Hold still."

Eryas felt excruciating pain striking all over him, but he tried to endure. He suppresses every bit of thought while screaming. 

Once everything was over, he finally felt slightly relieved. The pain was still there, but it was not as unbearable as before.

When he finally relaxed for a bit, his head turned towards the giant bird, and he said,

"What happened?"

Hearing that question, Clara also turned her gaze towards it and answered.

"It was all a trap. The crater is the sentient dark creature. When we confronted it there was no sentient creature at all. All that wait was an ambush. And I think Hars is involved in all of these. Speaking of that, what happened to you and where is Hars?"

"Well to start off, he is the sentient dark creature we were looking for."

"Wait, what?" Clara was surprised. She continued.

"Wow, that is shocking. Never would I think that he is a sentient darkness creature. So, he is a demon."

Not many people have encountered demons before. Even then, the one who encounters it doesn't live to tell the tale. The other reason is that the people of Veloria lived in peace and harmony before. They never knew what the threat from outside looked like.

Eryas continues to tell her in detail what happened between him and Hars. Of course, he left out the part where Hars knows he is a former member of the Black Dragon assassins. Clara also told him in detail about the trap. 

About how the five of them were put in the middle of the crater and later on were ambushed by a bunch of darkness creatures, and how she was kidnapped on their way to get out.

Hearing all of that, Eryas already had a conclusion on why the dark bird took her from the group.

"You know why it took you away?"

"Umm, because I look appetizing?"

"What? No." Eryas sighed afterward.

"The reason is…"

Suddenly, he felt chills run down his spine. The air felt cold.

'Crap'

Eryas plunges away from where he was while pushing Clara with him. Both of them rolled a few times on the ground, before a few seconds later, a massive explosion happened where they were. 

It sent them moving even further from it.

Afterward, they stop. Eryas was holding back from screaming as Clara was lying on top of his broken hand. He gave her a quick tap on her shoulder. When she notices, she immediately moves away.

"Im so sorry."

"It's okay."

'I really need to get this treated as soon as possible. But first…'

Both of them turn their attention towards where the explosion was. The dust around that place was thick, so they could not see clearly what was causing it. But then a leg suddenly came out from it, and then another one. 

The pair of legs slowly walks away from the cloud of dust, revealing who it was.

Eryas's face turned fierce when he saw who it was. Clara notices the changes in Eryas' expression and continues to scan the figure.

"Hars."

She was surprised.

"That is Hars?"

Indeed, his physical appearance is much different from before. An old man with a few grey hairs and a hunch back is no more. Now, a tall, standing, bald figure with menacing black void eyes, pale greyish skin, sharp nails, and tails on its back was looking directly at them.

What is more shocking is that, from behind Hars, another figure walks from the side and stands beside him. The figure's features are almost the same, except for the long black hair tied at the back and, instead of arms, enormous black feather wings as its limbs. 

He scans the other two people who were lying on the ground. Then he let out a voice.

"Enough playing Hars. Kill them already."

"Relax, are all scions of Hate this impatience?"

"Its not about patience. I can't stand that girl's presence. But, that boy seems intriguing. Is that him?"

"Yes, surprisingly enough, I thought he would be dead already."

Eryas felt a strange chill run through him as he looked at both sentient darkness creatures, the demons. Their voices alone are enough to send children crying, pissing their pants off. Not that he felt like it.

'Crap! Now there are two of them? Things just turn from bad to worse. Eryas what's with your luck today?'

He slowly rises from the ground. Even with all the fears that are haunting him right now, he still stands firm. He tries to build his confidence. Clara also follows his rise from the ground. She stands behind Eryas, holding onto his left sleeve.

Eryas could feel the trembling in her hands as she had it.

'What should we do? Argh, Crap! I couldn't think of anything.'

Then Eryas talks in a confident voice, hiding his fear.

"So the wing one is the thralls from the Devil of Hate, and you Hars from the Devil of Void, i presume?"

The wing demon steps forward but stops after only one step by Hars. He turns to Hars with a fierce face. Harsher than saying a word to him.

"Let me handle it, Vex."

Then Hars takes a few steps forward.

"Thralls of devils. You sure know how to play with words,Eryas."

Eryas readied his stance, even though he knew it would do no good. Then Hars clapped before continuing.

"Right on the mark. You do have knowledge of us, Eryas. As expected from the assassin of Black Dragon."

Hars' smiling face and the tone of his voice also turn serious.

"Well then, you must know what we wanted, right?"