“I’ll be back in a few hours, but if there’s one thing you should remember, it’s that once the bats start waking, it’s time to go,” Grizz said before he disappeared into another alleyway, leaving Orou simply standing there before an inn, a bit confused about where Grizz was going. The beastmen around him were giving him weird stares, most of them shying away now that they saw no one by his side.

Although it was hard to determine when the sun was setting down here thanks to the constant lighting of the spirits, Orou saw that fewer and fewer people walking the streets by the minute, the activity and the bustle of the city disappearing in an instant, leaving behind an empty city only inhibited by spirits. He saw people shutting their doors and locking them with wooden boards, the chattering inside of the buildings had almost completely ceased.

Orou stared up at the cavern’s ceiling, the few spirits that had made their way up there fully illuminated the bats hanging from stalactites, their blue eyes staring down at the city below them. As soon as the first bat flapped his wings, the rest of them followed suit, swooping down into the city with their massive, veiny wings. Each of them started screeching, drowning the city in an ungodly noise that hurt Orou’s ears simply by listening to it.

To Orou’s disappointment, not a single bat landed near his position, so Orou did the only natural thing left to do, which was to go look for some bats himself. He cast spirit vision on himself beforehand and started slithering over towards the north, looking for any signs of bats or what they might be doing in the city. Very soon, he understood why most of the doors were locked and people were hiding in their houses. A beastman closely resembling a pig was screaming in pain, a single bat was using its wings to wrap around the beastman and bite the beastman’s neck, sucking blood from his body.

The beastman flailed and tried to get it off of him, but the bat had tightly latched onto him and after a few moments, he toppled over and never stood back up, the bat continuing to suck his blood until the body had no more blood left for it to drink. The bat lingered on the body for a few more seconds before vomiting out something onto the body. Orou saw a few spirits approach whatever the bat vomited and enter inside of it.

While all of this was happening, Orou was approaching closer and closer to the bat, wanting to examine it further. The bat moved out of the way and Orou finally saw the thing on the corpse’s chest. It was a blue crystal, resembling that of a sapphire, slightly shimmering in the darkness, reflecting some of the light from the spirits. The bat flapped its wings and it was about to leave before it noticed a certain someone approaching from the distance. As in a frenzy, it started to quickly flap its wings, whipping up a mini-hurricane in the air as it approached Orou, greed and madness clearly evident in its eyes.

Orou was caught by surprise by the sheer speed of the bat, it practically tore through the air as its sharp teeth were snapping in the air, its body quivering in excitement. Orou didn’t have any time for spells so he did what he knew best and prepared his tail to meet the bat’s teeth. He had discovered that he could crudely control the waves, or at least make them head in the direction he wanted them to go, so he guided them towards his tail in preparation to strike the bat dead. The waves battered his rear end and his skin prickled each time the waves hit his tail, but that only made Orou more excited to what was about to come.

The bat flew in a straight path to Orou, desperate to taste his blood and sink his teeth into Orou’s flesh and when it finally reached him, Orou was ready to strike. Aiming to smash the bat to smithereens, he raised his tail and with his full force smashed down on the bat. A horrible whoosh of air blew the bat out of its course, but just as it was about to meet its end, the bat’s eyes regained intelligence and using the wind as a propellant, launched itself out of striking range.

Orou’s tail continued to travel downwards, straight into the stone road. Chunks of stone flew everywhere, some even striking the bat in the process as a massive crater stood where once was a road. His tail was badly hurt from direct contact with the stone, but he wasn’t about to let go of an opportunity to strike the bat. As it tried to regain its balance and fly up higher in the air, Orou lunged forwards in hopes of dragging the bat down to the ground and fully devouring it. It almost felt like the bat knew where he was going to strike before he did so himself as it deftly avoided Orou’s lunge.

The bat swooped in to strike at Orou and he tried his best to dodge, but for once in his life, he realised the disadvantages of being so big. He avoided the strike to his head, but the bat’s claws dug deep underneath his scales and it latched onto Orou’s back. It plunged its sharp teeth into Orou’s body and started to feast on his blood. Orou could feel his blood quickly depleting and it was not a pleasant feeling. Guiding the waves to his rear end, he used all of his might to fling the bat off of his back and back into the air. It flew for a few meters before once more stabilizing itself, but Orou saw that its eyes and body had drastically changed now.

The eyes of the bat had gone completely red and its body was swollen, all of the veins on the bat’s wings were popped out and the bat was unsteadily flying in the air, looking as if it was about to fall and crash. As Orou cautiously observed the bat, he saw that the bat’s body became more bloated, until it resembled a sort of balloon. It let out the loudest screech Orou had heard in his life as soon after, Orou saw the bat’s body pop, sending a shower of blue blood and entrails everywhere.

Directly below to where the bat had blown up was a red crystal, very similar to the one he had seen just recently in Grizz’s hands. The shade of the crystal was of a much deeper red and it shone with a brighter light when Orou looked at it. Unlike the crystal from earlier which looked like the most delicious thing in the world, the only feeling he got from this crystal was that of shame and disgust. It almost looked like his own blood, though in a crystal form.

Orou desperately wanted to inspect this crystal closer, but it seemed like the bat’s screech had attracted an entire swarm of bats, all heading in Orou’s direction. There must have been hundreds, thousands if not more, but he couldn’t be sure how many there were. The only thing he was sure about was the fact that he would die if the entire swarm landed on him, so his instincts took over and using the waves within his body, he started to flee at the fastest speed he could. He fled in search of some sort of cover that would protect him from the bats, but most of the doors were barricaded shut and ruined buildings wouldn’t protect him from the swarm.

He ran and ran before he realised that he couldn’t hear the screeching of the bats anymore. He didn’t know whether they chased him and he simply outran them or if they had gotten distracted by the crystal, but Orou wasn’t keen to find out. He slowly and carefully made his way back to the inn where he and Grizz were supposed to meet while keeping his eyes and ears open for any more bats.

While he didn’t see any more of the blue bats, he saw bat-like beastmen descend onto the streets with various bags in their hands, scouring the streets for something. Observing them closer, he saw the bat beastmen picking up the crystals and putting them in their bags, their eyes carefully looking at the surrounding buildings with a steely gaze.

While the collectors walked around the street, Orou returned back to the inn and hid in the alleyway nearby, collecting his thoughts about the bats and the crystals he had seen earlier.