Chapter 210

A bloodcurdling scream tore through the burning streets of Orario, a lament of despair that mingled with the roar of collapsing buildings and the frantic heartbeat of a doomed city.

The anguished cry, “Aaaaaaaaah,” resonated in the night like the dying wail of a forsaken soul. Amid the chaos, innocent civilians clamored for escape while lethal torrents of poison-tipped arrows and blazing fireballs rained down mercilessly upon them, ensuring that their final moments would last no longer than a few heartbeats.

In that infernal moment, the city became a stage for horror beyond measure—a scene meticulously orchestrated by dark, ruthless forces.

Clad in immaculate milk-white robes that belied their bloodstained purpose, the assailants advanced with unsettling composure.

Their eyes shone with a feverish madness, as if the very essence of darkness had possessed them. “Run, everyone—it's the evilus!” a desperate voice cried out in the distance, a solitary warning amid the clamor of pandemonium.

But the warning was futile; the sounds of terror multiplied as explosions thundered and the ceaseless eruptions of violence drowned out every plea for mercy.

Lifeless bodies crumpled to the ground like discarded marionettes, only to be trampled relentlessly by the cold, unyielding boots of their killers.

Amid the inferno of chaos and death, sparks erupted into the night and twisted shadows danced macabrely across shattered cobblestones.

Evil was not a distant force—it was crawling, insidious, reaching its zenith with every reaper-like step.

In the midst of this spiraling nightmare stood one man, his figure stark against the backdrop of burning streets and a scattering of cold, lifeless corpses.

This was Vito, an executive of the evilus forces, his presence as commanding as it was grotesque.

With a theatrical gesture, Vito raised his arms to the chaos around him.

“Now come one and all, the stage is set, the curtains flung open!” he declared, his voice laced with an unsettling mix of derision and glee as he surveyed his handiwork.

Before him lay a gallery of horrors—an elf, its corpse frozen in a final expression of terror that seemed more a mask of pure horror than a trace of life; a dwarf, impaled against a crumbling wall, his blood splattered in a pattern that might be mistaken for a grotesque masterpiece; and a heart-wrenching pair, a beast-kin mother and daughter, their hands interlocked in their final moments of vulnerable togetherness.

Each scene was a deliberate stroke on Vito’s canvas of destruction, and he took pride in every detail.

Satisfied with his display of cruelty, Vito began to move again, his heavy boots echoing methodically on the ravaged cobblestones.

His voice, carrying a sinister cadence, filled the air as he continued his proclamation:

“Thus ends the era of peace, but ushers in our own. The evilus opening ceremony, as my god would proclaim, has begun.” With that chilling declaration, Vito strode toward one of main streets of the city where pandemonium reigned supreme.

Along the main street, terror reigned unchecked.

Everywhere his eyes wandered, terrified civilians ran in all directions, their faces contorted with fear and desperation.

Throwing his arms wide open in a display that was both grand and ghastly, Vito’s voice rose above the anguished din.

“Now sing for me, dance to the opera of death and delight! For tonight, I shall let the darkness reign supreme.” His words were an invitation—a diabolical rallying cry that combined the beauty of art with the ugliness of death.

“A banquet of blood, irresistible in its gruesome allure, awaits. Come forth, offer yourselves to the birth of a glorious era,” he declared, ending his theatrics with a flourish that left very little doubt about his malevolent intentions.

In that dreadful hour, as the streets of Orario were drenched in the vivid red of spilled blood and despair, Vito experienced a perverse joy unlike any other.

It was a day that, in his warped mind, transcended every moment of darkness he had known—a day when the price of life was paid in carnage and the splendor of destruction lit up the night like a cruel, radiant fire.

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Far from the epicenter of slaughter, along the main northwestern road, the lobby of the guild was in a state of disarray.

Panicked citizens swarmed the entrance as overwhelmed guild employees struggled to rise above the chaos, their voices nearly drowned by the incessant clamor.

“Reinforcement request in district six! Someone quick, send it to the headquarters” cried one urgent report.

“Evilus agents have been spotted carrying out attacks—skirmishes have already broken out in districts one, two, and four!” another voice shouted.

Amid the unfolding disaster, a frustrated guild employee’s scream echoed through the hall: “Aaaaah, the casualty reports keep flooding in—we can’t keep up!”

At the heart of this storm of bewilderment stood Royman, his expression one of stunned disbelief.

Amid the swirling chaos where every sense was overwhelmed, he barely managed to grasp the gravity of the situation.

“How can this be happening?” he muttered, scarcely able to believe that war had descended upon the once-glorious Orario.

Perspiration mingled with sweat as it dripped down his chubby cheeks, his mind struggling to untangle the threads of a catastrophe that seemed as if it were scripted by fate itself.

“It can’t be…,” he repeated in a trembling whisper, his eyes widening in a moment of horrified realization that chilled him to the core.

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While Royman grappled with the unraveling sanity of his world, another figure found a vantage point above the chaos.

Perched atop a towering, burning building, Valletta took in the scene with a leering satisfaction that belied the madness around her.

Her voice, laced with cruel delight, cut through the cacophony: “Hyayayayay, it appears the feast of blood has commenced. Come, let me hear your dying screams!” With a predatory grace, she plunged headlong into the tumult, her presence merging with the swirling inferno, as explosions echoed in the distance—a familiar symphony of destruction that stirred something deep within her.

“Aaaah,” she cried out with wild exhilaration, her eyes sparkling with a deranged joy.

The sound was nothing short of music to her ears—a long-awaited crescendo in her dark reverie. For Valletta, there was no scene more exhilarating than this: the streets bathed in chaos, the relentless slaughter of the helpless, and the ceaseless anthem of death that filled the night air.

A palpable manifesto of violence coursed through the veins of the evilus, stirred from their shackles of conventional morality to embrace an existence where every act of savagery was a hymn to their perverse ideals.

They were monsters, yes, but in their twisted logic, they saw themselves as the unacknowledged victims of a cruel, illogical world that had stolen everything from them.

The evil gods, ever watchful and indifferent, observed the carnage with a blend of amusement and disdain.

From the lofty heights of a tall building, they whispered dark praises, “How beautiful, how humorous, how hideous these mortals are!” They scoffed at the imperfect, deluded souls who danced on the edge of oblivion, committing sins over and over again as if trapped within an endless cycle of despair.

They revelled in the sight of these foolish, imperfect beings deceiving themselves, repeating the same cycle of violence and sin, all while knowing in their hearts that what they did was wrong.

To them, the concepts of good and evil were nothing more than two sides of the same tarnished coin—a notion they clapped their hands over with cruel laughter, conveniently ignoring their own role in igniting the chaos.

Thought their philosophy was questionable, it could not entirely be dismissed.

The gods had their powers sealed in the mortal world, so they did not employ physical force to compel these people to commit such acts.

Though uncertain promises were made, these could have easily been ignored.

The mortals willingly chose to delude themselves, indicating that the evil gods were not solely to blame for the turmoil.

Even without the intervention of the evil gods, something like this was going to happen sooner or later, mortals just needed a convenient excuse to do it.

Between the gory proclamations and divine murmurs, Valletta silenced any lingering moral argument with an icy sneer.

“Either descend and join us—or shut the hell up,” she spat, her words dripping with venom.

“I do not have time for your pitiful babbling. I have a slaughterhouse to run.”

For Valletta, philosophy was irrelevant; life only held value insofar as it satisfied her bloodlust.

Each shattered ancient taboo, each drop of mortal blood spilled, was a source of intoxicating pleasure.

“I will allow none of you to escape,” she bellowed to the burning sky, her voice echoing like a death knell meant for all who dared stand against her—be they innocent civilians, tenacious adventurers, or even the gods themselves.

“This is a showdown, a definitive clash between you and us. Now is the hour of the evilus to flourish—an era destined for relentless killing, ruthless looting, and unbridled pillaging.”

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Far from the epicenters of chaos, in the heart of Orario, Draco wrestled internally as well as externally with the nightmarish reality unfolding around him.

Clutching his throbbing head, he felt every pulse—a painful reminder of how gravely he had underestimated the scale of the devastation.

A severe shortage of manpower and vital supplies had plunged Orario, once a vast and vibrant city, into a crucible of despair.

Despite its mighty population, the balance between capable defenders—the adventurers—and the teeming masses of terrified civilians was woefully inadequate.

The evacuation points already swelled with desperate souls, each group a potential target for the vile suicide tactics employed by the evilus.

While civilians were herded in haste towards supposed sanctuaries, the scarcity of defenders left them vulnerable to meticulously planned ambushes.

Draco’s task was monumental.

With focus, he maintained a powerful search magic over the densely packed evacuation points, ensuring that no enemy could slip through their fragile defenses unnoticed.

Every moment of distraction risked an explosion that would doom the gathered throngs to instant annihilation.

In the midst of this overwhelming pressure, Draco’s thoughts faltered momentarily as he wondered bitterly, ‘Is this what Finn endures every time?’ The realization weighed heavily on him: the delicate balance of salvation was teetering on the brink of collapse, and any misstep could set the stage for total annihilation.

The steady stream of urgent messages did little to alleviate the mounting tension.

“Report: the guild urgently requires aid in districts one, two, four, and six. It appears the evilus executives have finally emerged,” came the latest update from a young Loki familia member, Raul.

Draco’s inner turmoil deepened with every word.

He felt torn between the duty to protect and the impossibility of countering the myriad forces arrayed against them.

‘Do we even have anyone left to handle the executives?’ he thought in dismay, his mind racing for a solution as the situation spiraled further downward.

Seeking further news, he asked, “Any word from the raid group?” The response, laden with futility, came back—“Not yet.” Worry etched itself deeper into Raul’s face as the critical seconds ticked by.

With no alternative in sight, Draco issued orders that stung him as sharply as his own bitter regrets: “Send word to the Ishtar Familia immediately. They will have the manpower we need. Tell them it is on Finn’s behalf.” Though he loathed the necessity of involving such unsavory allies, the dire straits forced his hand.

Raul departed swiftly, vanishing into the turbulent corridors of a city on the brink of collapse, leaving Draco to cling to a fraying thread of hope.

In a final, desperate moment amidst the turmoil, Draco silently prayed that every last ounce of help would arrive before the evilus unleashed their full might—before the dreaded powerhouses, each a level seven terror, descended upon the fragile remnants of order.

The crushing inevitability of facing such overwhelming force without reinforcements haunted him, his thoughts oscillating between grim duty and the despair of isolation.