As Charles pushed open the clinic’s final heavy oak door and stepped outside, dusk was already closing in.
The setting sun hung red as blood, staining the clouds along the horizon a sickly crimson.
Before him lay a front courtyard of roughly a hundred square meters.
It should have been a peaceful place where patients could walk and recover, but now it had become a desolate graveyard.
The plants had withered away as though drained of all life.
Shattered plaster statues and overturned benches lay scattered throughout the grounds, leaving the courtyard in such ruin that the sight made his chest tighten.
Beyond the low courtyard wall, rows of typical Gothic Revival buildings rose along the distant streets.
Layer upon layer of sculpted pointed arches, colorful rose windows shimmering with an eerie glow beneath the evening light, intricate flying buttresses supporting the buildings like skeletal frames, and unfamiliar Church emblems standing atop spires that thrust toward the clouds as though trying to pierce the heavens…
Everything was steeped in a suffocating atmosphere where religion and despair seemed inextricably intertwined.
The buildings possessed a breathtaking, almost sinister grandeur beneath the blood-red sunset, but Charles had no interest in admiring them.
He only wanted to leave this cursed land as quickly as possible, find a way out, or…
find the so-called “Paleblood.”
“These bullets…”
As he passed along the edge of the courtyard, Charles found several oddly shaped bullets in the pocket of a long-dead corpse dressed in tattered Church robes.
Their casings appeared to be made from some kind of silvery-white metal and felt icy cold to the touch.
Intricate, mysterious runes he could not understand had been engraved into their surfaces, while something resembling liquid mercury could faintly be seen flowing inside.
He guessed they might be specialized ammunition used by the Church for exorcism.
Given how obviously abnormal this town was, he decided to take them with him in case they proved useful.
“Too bad I couldn’t find a weapon that uses these bullets.”
Charles shook his head helplessly and slipped the bullets into his pocket, then swept his sharp gaze across the deathly silent courtyard once more.
There were two tightly shut, rust-covered iron gates.
The one leading toward the rear was secured from the inside by a massive copper lock, completely blocking Charles’s path.
With no other choice, he headed toward the heavier black iron gate that opened onto the wider world outside.
Beyond it, the most striking sight was a massive stone bridge spanning a deep ravine.
Like the spine of some colossal beast, it stood against the crimson evening sky, magnificent yet mournful.
A broad avenue that might once have bustled with traffic stretched toward the town’s towering walls.
Yet instead of the prosperity and life he might have expected, everything along the road presented a horrifying picture of desolation and decay.
The blue-brick road was littered with the mangled corpses of horses and coachmen.
Their bodies bore a grisly mixture of wounds, some clearly inflicted by sharp weapons, others by the frenzied bites of wild dogs.
Suitcases abandoned during a frantic escape lay everywhere, along with broken carts and even children’s dolls.
Lavishly decorated carriages had also been deserted outside the tightly shut city gates, left there to weather beneath wind and rain.
Every sign of chaos and despair told the same story in deafening silence.
A sudden and devastating riot or disaster had swept through this place.
In their overwhelming panic, people had abandoned every possession they could not carry, caring only about fleeing back into what seemed to be the safety of the fortified city.
Everything outside its walls had been left behind to become an abandoned hell.
Whoosh!
Without warning, a foul-smelling axe blade tore through the stagnant air with a nauseating gust, passing so close to Charles’s nose that the icy brush of death made every hair on his body stand on end.
Had his body not instinctively jerked backward at the last possible moment, the powerful blow would have split him open from the head down, spilling his entrails across the ground.
“Plague-ridden Rat!”
A hoarse roar filled with madness and hatred rang out.
A middle-aged man wearing a crooked top hat and tattered clothes advanced on him step by step, holding a blazing Torch aloft.
His eyes were blood-red.
There was not the slightest trace of reason left in them, only a naked urge to kill anyone he saw.
“Wait! We’ve never had any quarrel. I’m just passing through!”
Charles used his agility to keep dodging while trying to reach whatever shred of humanity might still remain inside the man.
“Get out! Get out! You foreign scum!”
The man was completely trapped inside his own deranged worldview.
He raised his bloodstained axe and swung again with savage force.
Charles dodged again and again, narrowly avoiding the blade, only for the man to suddenly lash out with the Torch in his other hand.
The scorching flames swept across the clothes on Charles’s back with a roar.
The sudden sting and burning pain instantly brought back a vivid childhood memory.
He had once knocked over a scalding candlestick by accident, and molten wax had burned the back of his hand.
“Ugh!”
Charles grunted and hurriedly threw himself into a roll, using his body to smother the flames licking across his back.
The acrid smell of charred fabric spread through the air.
“Look at me! I’m human! I’m not a monster!”
He shouted as he rolled, hoping his words might somehow pierce through the man’s madness.
The setting sun burned blood-red overhead.
The Torch traced a scorching, dangerous arc through the air, its flickering flames illuminating the man’s hideously twisted face.
“Burn! Burn this cursed monster! Purify! It must be purified!”
As Charles scrambled to avoid another attack, the back of his hand struck a sharp-edged brick lying near the base of the wall.
His survival instincts took over completely.
“Die!”
The instant the man’s axe struck nothing but air, Charles sprang up like a cheetah.
Pouring all his strength into his arm, he smashed the brick into the man’s temple.
“Thud!”
A dull, solid impact rang out, like fish trapped beneath a sheet of ice making one last desperate struggle.
Yet the madman merely snapped his head to one side and staggered slightly.
Dark red blood trickled from his temple, but he did not fall.
It was as though he could not feel pain at all.
Instead, his blood-red eyes fixed on Charles with even greater savagery.
“You’re still not dead?!”
Horror surged through Charles.
He tightened his grip around the bloodstained brick, every muscle in his body tensing as he prepared to lunge forward and deliver a killing blow.
At that very instant, an excruciating chill stabbed into his back without warning and punched straight through his chest.
Charles instinctively lowered his head.
A bloodstained blade was protruding from his chest where his heart lay, its tip gleaming coldly.
Hot blood sprayed outward like a snapped string of ruby beads, scattering through the air in vivid arcs beneath the setting sun.
“He… has accomplices…”
The world before Charles’s eyes instantly lost all color.
His strength drained away as though a floodgate had been thrown open.
He pitched heavily forward, his cheek striking the cold, rough stone pavement.
Only then did he realize that he had already walked straight into a carefully prepared ambush.
“Die, Beast!”
Three thugs emerged from the shadows, brandishing large axes, pitchforks, and wooden clubs.
They rushed toward Charles as though he truly were a monster, descending upon him as he lay helpless on the ground.
Even as his consciousness dimmed like a candle flame flickering in the wind, the last fragments of Charles’s thoughts continued to ask the same questions.
Why were these complete strangers so determined to kill him?
Why were they so absolutely convinced that he was a monster that had to be destroyed?
I refuse to accept this…
How can I die without even knowing why…
at the hands of a bunch of madmen…