Modern World Warlock

After Nihilor was executed in the alley, all of the mind-controlled victims returned to their senses at the same time.

Most of them were silent in shock as all of the memories of the time they were being controlled flowed into their minds.

Before people could fall into despair and more confusion, the leader of the Kappa Team, Neil, used a speaker to direct his words to the traumatized citizens.

With a gentle and confident tone, the man reassured everyone present that they had been freed from a curse, which distressed some of the victims while others were more skeptical.

Neil couldn't be too descriptive, so he gave a vague explanation, blaming a terrorist group for using narcotics to brainwash them, and the people seemed to buy that idea more than the curse.

Most of the victims had seen the demons with their own eyes, so they knew that there was more to the story. However, Neil didn't have time to elaborate and asked them to make a line to get medical treatment if they still needed it.

While that was happening in the plaza, Dante returned to the demolished cathedral with Camille, who wanted to inspect it closer. Nonetheless, there was barely anything left of the structure.

The rooms behind the altar burned down, but there were still a few things that could be salvaged.

Dante carried Camille through the hole in the ground and went down to the basement where Astaroth had been accumulating power, finding the pentagram on the ground that was used to summon the behemoth.

At the back of the basement, a giant pile of human bones, at least three meters in height, was stacked on top of each other.

The warlock deduced that they were victims that Astaroth tormented to feed from their umbra, making Camille bite her lips with anger.

When Dante approached the pile of bones, he sensed a faint flow of umbra coming from beneath it.

"Umm, what are you doing?" Camille asked with a raised eyebrow when she noticed the warlock digging through the bones.

Using umbra to move away the remaining bones, Dante found a book at the very bottom.

"A grimoire…" Dante muttered.

"Could that be the book that was given to Sabelio?" Camille pondered.

"Hmm…" Dante hummed, opening the grimoire, which released a few shadowy strands from within that quickly dissipated.

"I see—This is quite primitive…" Dante commented while flipping the pages.

Camille asked for clarification, and the warlock explained that anyone who read the book would learn how to summon a demon with dark magic.

Moreover, it flooded the readers' brains with information about Astaroth and the existence of umbra.

"So that's how he learned about the demon and the summoning ritual…" Camille said, expressing how strange it was that the book was supposedly given to him by the members of the Onyx Cartel.

Dante wasn't aware of them, but he still agreed with the fact that it was strange.

From Sabelio's words, the Onyx Cartel had given him twenty years to overtake all of the Jade Dragons and provided him with the means to do it—the grimoire.

"It wouldn't make sense to give Sabelio the ability to summon a powerful demon without having the means to oppose it…" Camille continued, locking eyes with the warlock.

"Dante… could there be others like you here?" The handler asked.

"A few hours ago, I would have said, 'I don't know.' However…" Dante said, stopping for a moment as he scanned his surroundings, detailing the demolished cathedral.

"This church was definitely made by someone from Terra. I've read everything about the different cultures in this world, and none of them mention the Pantheon of Four…" Dante continued.

*Tch* "I thought I wouldn't see that damn symbol again," he said, clicking his tongue with annoyance.

"Do you wanna be a little more detailed?" Camille asked.

"Yeah, but I'll do it with the others present—I've been feeling like Sophia and Megan have wanted to ask me something for some time…" the warlock replied.

Camille smiled with contentment and turned her head at the grimoire, wondering what they should do with it.

"Do you want it?" Dante casually asked.

"Does it have any use besides giving you a headache?" she answered with another question.

"Umm… No—A grimoire's function is to teach a spell or ritual to the reader, but that's as far as its abilities go," the warlock replied.

Still, Camille wasn't sure what to do with the book since she wasn't as knowledgeable about them as Dante, so she wondered what he would do with it.

In an instant, the tome in Dante's hand caught up in flames, reducing it to ashes in mere seconds.

"That's what I would do," he said with a gentle smile, which made Camille feel a sense of relief.

__________________

The following morning, Highpoint Town was still blocked from the public. However, it was a real police barricade preventing cars from entering and leaving.

After the incident, Camille made a call to a member of the Epsilon Team, who had a high position within the government of Novaria.

When the information was passed along to the prime minister, he sent a group called the NSS (Novaria Secret Service) to clean up the police headquarters in Novis.

Moreover, the reconstruction and maintenance of Highpoint Town started that same morning, and the government compensated all of the targeted victims heftily.

The case went on the news as a terrorist organization that used a narcotic to brainwash a whole town, and while there was no news on the group that saved them, rumors spread around Novis that the Jade Dragons were back.

With Dante's perception, they were able to tell apart the people who worked with the demon willingly and were all sent to prison for life.

Still, there was one person they couldn't catch—Spook, the hacker who helped in the erasure of Dr. Sylva's information, leading to his kidnapping.

The hacker already had a high bounty on their head—and Trinity did, too. However, her charges were dropped when Camille testified to the NSS that she had been vital to their operation.