Walking within Blood-Red Night's sleeping quarters,
Roland and Angelica's feet were submerged in flowing dark red liquid.
They had no time to mind it. Both top-grade Fixers gripped their blades tightly, their senses sharpened as they watched for any movement around them.
The explosion had been far more powerful than they had anticipated.
Half of the sleeping quarters had collapsed. Amidst the gore and ruin, there was no sign of Blood-Red Night Elena herself.
Instead, scattered among the wreckage were several corpses clad in dark yellow hazmat suits.
Some had their chests torn open from within, their own blood having ruptured outward. Others were grotesquely embedded in hardened flesh and coagulated crimson, as though the environment itself had swallowed them whole.
"It's Elena," Angelica said quietly, recognizing the handiwork of a Bloodfiend. Her tone sank. "They died slowly… and painfully."
"Hm." Roland examined the remains, his eyes narrowing. "These look like agents from some unknown company. I don't know what they were here for, but they were unlucky enough to run straight into a Star of the city level distortion…"
Judging by the precision of the destruction, these people were clearly skilled in confined-space demolitions. And explosives of this caliber were not something just anyone could obtain—whoever sent them had considerable backing.
"Keep moving," Angelica said. "We don't know how far she and her servants have fled."
Roland nodded. Now wasn't the time to dwell on unanswered questions.
Blood-Red Night Elena had escaped pursuit in Section 1 countless times before. If they hesitated—
He took another step forward.
And both Fixers immediately sensed something wrong.
The blood beneath their feet began to thicken.
It congealed.
Then—
Countless blood-red spikes erupted upward from the ground.
Accompanied by ear-piercing shrieks,
Roland and Angelica leapt into the air, effortlessly dodging the spikes as they burst upward in chaotic waves.
The moment they landed, Angelica hurled her twin axes. Their spinning blades tore through the remaining blood spikes, shattering them mid-rise.
"Come out!"
As if answering her command, several bodies still embedded in the walls suddenly began to swell. They writhed violently, flesh distorting as they struggled free.
"Ugh—!!"
They crawled out of the blood pools, emitting wet, broken sounds. Coagulated blood—mixed with something unidentifiable—wrapped around their arms, reshaping itself into jagged blades.
Angelica reacted instantly. Adjusting her gloves, a lance nearly half her height materialized in her grip.
Before she could strike—
Roland's Durandal flashed behind her.
Cold light swept through the air in countless arcs, reducing the creatures to nothing more than misted blood.
"Manipulating will-less corpses with blood," Roland said, blade still raised, "then reconstructing their flesh…"
He brought his sword down hard into the blood pool beneath him.
A wall of blood surged upward in response, rising to half a man's height—
—but from within it came the unmistakable sound of something shattering.
"Is it fun," Roland continued evenly, "playing with corpses like this, Elena?"
Both he and Angelica knew it.
Blood-Red Night was close.
The silence did not last.
Footsteps echoed from the darkness ahead.
A woman stepped into view, her shoes treading calmly across the sea of blood.
Elena.
The Star of the city level Bloodfiend made no attempt to hide herself.
Her true form was fully revealed.
Only half of her face remained intact. The rest was consumed by exposed veins and flowing blood, dark crimson endlessly pulsing beneath the surface.
"You were the ones who intruded upon our sleeping quarters…" she said softly.
"Why do you insist on painting me as evil?"
Her voice was light—empty of emotion.
"Heh." Angelica tightened her grip on the lance. "You can look at the thousands of corpses around you and still pretend you've done nothing wrong?"
Along their path, she and Roland had seen countless Fixers and civilians butchered—
even members of Charles' Office.
Yet Angelica did not rush forward.
Blood-Red Night was infamous for her cunning. Recklessness would only invite disaster.
"To be precise," Elena said calmly, "there are 4,192 people here."
"They are all still sleeping. This is everyone's sleeping quarters."
No one replied.
Roland and Angelica exchanged a glance, then advanced in unison.
"Let's talk," Elena continued, her tone almost gentle.
"Perhaps you could let me go."
"We are human—just like you," she said.
"The only difference lies in appearance."
"We simply embraced our desires. Just as you do."
"Yet you fear us. You worship us. And then you cast us into the dark."
"Isn't that unfair?"
"When you encounter anomalies you cannot understand, you label them deviations and exile them out of fear. But you have no right to condemn us for that."
Her eyes remained closed, but the weight of her words grew heavier with each sentence—emotions long suppressed finally surfacing.
Impure blood from across 23rd Alley began creeping up her legs, merging seamlessly into her body.
Roland and Angelica burst forward.
At that instant, Elena's scarlet eyes snapped open.
No longer restraining herself, she roared—
"Since you can live as you please—
then so can we!"
This place was the nexus of excess blood within 23rd Alley.
Blood-Red Night's long-prepared sleeping quarters.
Under her control, blood erupted from every possible surface.
Spikes.
Waterfalls.
Floods of crimson.
Roland and Angelica cleaved through the surging obstacles without hesitation.
But they were still too late.
Blood engulfed Elena entirely. Her elegant suit dissolved, replaced by a nauseating, scarlet coat formed of living blood.
The surroundings warped.
Veins burst through the walls, thick and pulsating, disgorging fresh blood from unknown sources.
This was Elena's art—
collected over countless years.
"What a pity," she said with a smile.
"At your core, you're nothing more than flesh without true freedom."
"I hunger for something that can finally satisfy me…"
"Can you give me that?"
The battle began.
Roland and Angelica struck simultaneously.
Clang!
Weapons forged by top workshops—Aras Workshop, Ink Workshop—rang sharply as they collided with Elena's blood mist, producing the sound of metal striking metal.
"Tsk."
Angelica clicked her tongue and forced more power into her strike.
Her dark lance pierced through.
Elena stiffened.
For the first time, surprise crossed her face.
She raised a blood-forged blade to defend—
Angelica's eyes narrowed.
The thrust became a sweeping arc, tearing through resistance and carving a deep gash across Elena's abdomen.
Elena retreated several steps.
The exchange had lasted only a breath.
For an ordinary high-ranking Fixer, such a wound would be fatal.
For a Bloodfiend, it healed almost instantly as blood replenished itself.
Star of the city looked at Angelica anew.
"…Black Silence."
"It's an honor," Angelica replied with a faint smile.
She shook her glove.
Another dagger appeared in her hand.