The Kind of Evil

‎Astrea walked out of the carriage and immediately covered her nose with the back of her hand. Her gaze was cold as she stared at the forest in front of her. She could sense and feel the ominous atmosphere coming from the forest.

‎"Your Holiness?" Novia stared at Astrea with a worried expression.

‎"I'm fine..." Astrea immediately put a smile on her face as she shook her head. "Let's head in," she said as she walked toward the forest.

‎Rasmus walked in the front while Novia and Xena were in the back. They wanted to protect Astrea from any kind of threat since she only brought four paladins with her.

‎"That tree over there, we go right from there," Xena pointed at the tree with a few cut marks on the bark.

‎Rasmus looked at the ground and there were trails of horses and even wheels of carriages. The trails looked old and preserved because of the extremely cold weather.

‎"So this place is their secret hideout?" Astrea looked at Xena.

‎"Yes, Your Holiness. Based on the record, this organization was founded a hundred years ago, and it has been active since then," Xena answered as she looked around, keeping an eye on every small movement.

Rasmus closed his eyes and released Mana to use his perception magic throughout the forest. In less than a second, he felt the Mana that he had released become uncontrollable until finally the Mana disappeared. He looked in the direction of where he felt it, which was the northwest from where he stood.

Astrea and Novia watched as Rasmus used Mana to detect his surroundings, which was something that they had never seen before. They both knew Lenin well, and they never saw her do something like that. Lenin used detection through Mana traces and smell, which was quite different from Rasmus's method. They were amazed that Rasmus's limitation to seeing Mana didn't stop him from achieving something extraordinary.

"Did you feel it as well, Count?" Astrea asked out of curiosity.

"Yes, this is exactly what I felt back then when we explored the mountains near the Airedale port city. We encountered possessed humans and something that could turn corpses into Corrupted," Rasmus nodded as he kept his eyes on his northwest.

"I see, that means we are going to encounter them here," Astrea hummed and nodded.

As they went deeper into the forest, they saw a hidden village in the distance. They saw bandits taking the village as their base, and there was no sign of any villagers there.

Without wasting their time, Rasmus went to the east side of the village while Xena went to the west side of the village. Astrea, Novia, and the paladins stayed on the south side of the village, waiting for the scout that Xena sent to check on the village from up close.

Once they found out that there were no villagers but bandits with odd behaviors, everyone waited for the right moment to attack.

Rasmus pulled out his sword and immediately imbued it with Aura and Mana at the same time. The Mana that lingered around the blade suddenly turned into fire, catching the blade on fire. He knew that he couldn't use divine power, but he knew that possessed bodies weren't unkillable like the Corrupted.

As the fire devoured enough Mana and oxygen, making the flame hotter and fiercer, Rasmus swung his sword around and stabbed it to the ground. He released his Aura and the flame simultaneously, creating a massive wave of flame toward the village. The bandits who saw it coming couldn't do anything but to get devoured by the sea of flames that moved quickly.

It less than a minute, the whole village got burned down until there was nothing left of it. Astrea saw the demons in their spirit forms floating above the sea of flames, immediately clasping her hands together, releasing her divine energy and burning them until they disintegrated completely.

Rasmus walked into the village, releasing Mana and putting out the sea of flames as he walked past them. He looked at the remnants or remainings of the bodies of the bandits that had turned into crisp. He stood there at the center as the sea of flames calmed down as if he had tamed the flames with his presence while in fact it was what happened based on what Novia saw with her eyes.

"He can control Mana with his thoughts... like Sorcerers..." Novia muttered under her breath, shocked that Rasmus had become profound in both Mana and nature, something that she couldn't achieve. "He's really amazing..." she clenched her fists, feeling inferior after she witnessed what was Rasmus capable of.

Everyone was shocked because it was the first time they had witnessed Rasmus's skill in magic as a mage. They almost forgot that he was a Blackheart, a family that produced prodigies in magic. They couldn't believe that he could kill more than a thousand soldiers single-handedly with his swordmanship and was also a dangerous mage that could devour a village with a single move.

Xena approached Rasmus and looked at the damage he had caused, in disbelief that someone was capable of doing something like that. She then furrowed her brows when she saw something inside one of the houses. When she walked in to check, she slowly put the back of her hand to cover her mouth and nose as she looked away.

"Children..." Rasmus said as he stood behind Xena and looked at the bodies of children that were stacked up in the corner. "It's a shame that we came too late," he muttered.

Xena didn't say a word and then glanced at the other houses, wondering how many bodies that were hiding in those buildings.

"Don't think of something that you'll regret," Rasmus said and then walked away, looking at Astrea, Novia, and the Paladins entered the village.

Xena took a deep breath as she closed her eyes, steeling her guts before she walked out of the house and regrouped with the others. She tried so hard to not look around because she knew that she would regret it, and there was nothing she could do.

"We are getting closer," Astrea stared at the distance.

"Yes, let's not waste our time here. There's a chance that there are people there that we can save," Rasmus nodded and stared in the direction where Astrea was staring.

Everyone nodded and left the village to continue their investigation toward the hideout where nobles and demonic cult members had gathered in the past century.

The moment they got closer to their destination, they began to smell rotten flesh that struck their nostrils. It was so unbearable that even the cold couldn't prevent the smell from spreading. The bitterness in their throats reminded Astrea and Novia of Blackcliffs, the place where the dead ruled over the land of the living.

Novia released a wind barrier to prevent the unpleasant smell from reaching everyone's nostrils. The scarcity of Mana was a sign that something vile and evil was near, and it put everyone on guard. They didn't know what they were going to face, but to have each other on their side, it shouldn't be a problem.

Not long after they explored the forest, they found a big cave, and that was where the unpleasant smell came from. That cave was the one that Xena's scout team reported to her back then, and it was no wonder that they were afraid to investigate.

"Something is coming, something evil..." Astrea warned everyone as she furrowed her brows. "And there are a lot of them..." she added.

Novia stayed by Astrea's side while Xena and Rasmus stood at the front with their swords ready. The Paladins and Servil's knights guarded the rear and the sides as they kept their eyes at their fronts.

A dozen of the knights came out of the cave, but they were no longer humans as their faces had swollen and started to rot. They had become Corrupted, and based on their armor, it belonged to various families, and even the royal family of the Caldara Kingdom. It was enough evidence that the previous royal family that ruled the kingdom was indeed involved themselves with the organization that worshiped demons.

"This is just one of the many. There are more of them out there, unbeknownst to us..." Astrea said as she clenched her fists, realizing that her influence as a Saint wasn't enough to prevent people from going astray.