“Alice, medicine.”

Seraphiel gently placed Alice down onto her bed, reached down to his belt and took out a small pouch made from a piece of his own cloak. The smell coming from that pouch was surprisingly sweet and pleasant, despite having blood all over it.

Alice instantly noticed that smell. It was something that she was very much familiar with. Hence, “Vampire venom?" she asked, "But... we were out of it?”

“No, don’t worry,” Seraphiel replied. “I have managed to get some more.”

“How?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“No! It matters!” Alice suddenly became restless. She even tried to use her hands to push her tiny body up, but was too weak and eventually had to lie back down. It was true that she needed the vampire venom, but the thing was, vampire venom was not something easy to get. The Dark Capital Signis was the only place in the world selling this drug in its bars for recreation purposes, but outside of it, the only way to obtain vampire venom was to take it from the vampires themselves, or… from the place that provided it to Alice in the first place.

“Sylserin…” Alice muttered the name. Ilva de Sylserin, was one major city within Elunore, the kingdom of the Elves. As Alice wasn’t aware of the fact that she was very close to Signis, she could only think of that possibility.

“No, of course,” said Seraphiel as he suddenly realized what Alice was thinking. “Sylserin was destroyed, you know that. And even if I wanted to, I couldn’t go back to that place. It's probably flooded with black mud and full of reapers by now.”

“Y-yeah…” Alice heaved a sigh of relief. “You’re right. But then, how did you?”

“I was just lucky to came across some vampires while I was out looking for food. They were fast, so it took a while to take them down.”

Seraphiel then opened the pouch and emptied it by pouring whatever inside onto his palm. There was some kind of rattling sound. The angel then held Alice’s hand, letting her feel what he was holding.

“What is this? Bones?” asked Alice.

“No, not bones, teeth!” Seraphiel answered with a smile. “Vampire fangs, see? ”

“Yeah, you’re right!” said Alice as she could feel the pointy ends of those vampire fangs with her fingers. “But then, you, are you hurt?”

“What? I’m fine,” said Seraphiel, “Those vampires are not strong, so I even managed to get plenty of fangs!”

“Really?”

“Yes!”

“I’m glad.” Alice now smiled cheerfully as all of her worries were gone. However, if she could see Seraphiel now, she wouldn’t be so happy.

“Okay, now, please be a good girl and wait a bit okay? I will get the medicine out for you right away.”

And thus, Seraphiel proceeded to extract his “medicine” out of the vampire fangs. The thing he wanted was not the bones, but only the precious liquid inside them. During the fight at the bar in Signis, as Seraphiel didn’t have enough time, he had to rip the fangs out of those poor vampire's mouths. This way, he could later crush them to get the venom out, and it also helped the venom to stay fresh as it could easily be damaged by air or light. Sunlight was one of the reasons for this drug to not be available anywhere outside of Signis, as it was extremely fragile, with just a little ray of sunlight could vaporize it in fractions of a second, plus the fact that vampires were rarely seen anywhere else outside of the Dark Capital nowadays.

And so, Seraphiel selected four biggest fangs, put the rest back into his pouch. With his bare hands, he crushed the fangs and ground them into tiny bits only the size of the grains of sand. He only managed to squeeze out just a few drops of venom from them, but as the drug extracted this way was the purest form and hadn’t been damaged by environmental factors, it was actually a thousand times stronger than the ones which normally sold inside bars, and was certainly enough for Alice.

Seraphiel used one hand to cover his palm so that light couldn’t damage his venom. Then, he brought it close to Alice’s mouth, so she could take it.

“Alice, drink this.” Seraphiel whispered softly.

The vampire venom was colorless and had the sweetest smell one could ever imagine. It probably tasted good too. Alice raised her hand to find Seraphiel’s. Then, she opened her mouth, and licked the angel’s palm, taking in the venom.

“Ah!”

Instantly, Alice moaned. Her body started to have an intense reaction to the drug. Normally, one could only safely take a small fraction of a drop of vampire venom before they overdosed, but Alice, she just took so much, and even took the purest form of it! As a result, all of her toes curled, goosebumps emerged all over her body. She trembled, twisted and bent into an arc-like shape while breathing rapidly. Alice’s skin was already cold before, but now, it became snow white and as cold as ice. In one moment, Alice even grasped Seraphiel’s wings with every drop of strength she had, to the point that some of his feathers were pulled out, leaving blood all over the little girl’s hand.

However, everything quickly returned to normal under ten seconds.

“How was it?” Seraphiel waited for Alice to calm down, then asked.

Alice’s tolerance was too much, but the drug seemed to have worked fine for her. She reached for Serephiel’s hand again, then smiled.

“Thank you, Seraphiel, I’m better now.”

Alice’s voice was now stronger than it was before, and color had returned to her face. Only lightly, but it was definitely better.

“That’s good,” said Seraphiel with a soft voice. “Now, you must sleep, to regain your strength.”

“Yeah, you’re right…” Alice replied with a smile. “But, can you hold me while I sleep like you did before? So I can feel you?”

“I want to, but I have to go check the barrier first.” Seraphiel patted Alice's head, and the girl gave him a cute pout.

“Oookay, then please be with me when I wake up.”

“Yes, I promise, if you be a good girl and sleep now.”

Hearing that, Alice smiled happily. She then moved her hands around, made herself a nice little blanket from all the feathers around her and quickly fell asleep. Seraphiel could tell that his girl was sleeping even though she didn’t have eyes to close, as her breathes had become stable and her face was calm. Alice must be having a really peaceful dream, a thing that she hadn’t had for months since the two left Ilva de Sylserin and ran out of medicine.

And just like that, Seraphiel watched Alice sleep for a while. He then stood up, walked towards the entrance and drew some kind of runes all over the wall with his blood, or rather, re-traced his old drawings. This was how the angel strengthen his barrier to protect he and Alice from outside forces.

But, as Seraphiel nearly finished his spell, the ground shook and black mud suddenly found its way inside the cave by flowing through small gaps between the boulders guarding the entrace.

Temperature dropped to a freezing point. Seraphiel knew what was going on, he quickly jumped back and spread his wings, shielding the sleeping Alice.

From the puddle of black mud, a creature slowly emerged. It had a figure resembling that of a human, with body, arms and legs all made of black mud, but without any eyes or mouth. And then, it spoke :

“Oooooooooooooooh, captain! I have found you at last! Your crying have reached our ears even from thousands and thousands of miles away you know? Come back to us, captain, and we shall purge this ugly world from sins and regain our place in heaven!”

The creature used a strange language consisting of only super high frequency sounds. The ground vibrated with every word the creature said. To the normal ears, it would probably sound like someone was screeching in pain.

“I refuse” Seraphiel gave his answer without any hesitation, using the same language.

“I see, you have been sinned." The creature tilted its head. "Too bad, then I must purge you myself.”

“Come.”

Hearing that, the creature raised its arm and in its hand, a giant black scythe materialized out of nothing. Holding the scythe, the creature launched itself at Seraphiel with the speed outmatched even lightning!

Seraphiel too, charged back at the creature. However, as he had no weapon nor armor, this deteriorating angel body was all that he had.