Rain struck the chapel windows softly.
Inside, only candlelight moved.
A lone man stood silently near the center of the room, soaked cloak dripping water across the stone floor beneath him. Mud clung to his boots from days of travel, yet he made no attempt to clean himself.
The figure seated before him finally spoke.
“…Repeat your report.”
The priest’s voice remained calm.
Coldly calm.
The spy lowered his head slightly.
“The curse in Norvale has completely disappeared.”
Silence followed immediately.
The candles flickered.
The priest’s expression did not change.
“That region was classified irreversible.”
“I know.”
“And yet you’re telling me an entire cursed settlement recovered overnight?”
The spy hesitated briefly.
“…Yes.”
The priest slowly folded his hands together.
“Explain.”
The spy’s throat tightened slightly.
Even now, recalling Norvale unsettled him.
“I arrived shortly before the crimson rainfall began,” he said quietly. “The village should have collapsed within weeks based on progression records. Most citizens were already nearing final-stage deterioration.”
He paused.
“But then Underground activated.”
The temperature inside the chapel seemed to drop slightly.
The priest’s eyes narrowed faintly.
“…Activated?”
“I heard sounds beneath the village during the night. Tremors followed shortly after.”
The spy slowly removed something from inside his cloak.
A small notebook.
Rain-damaged.
Its pages were filled with hurried writing and rough sketches.
He opened toward one particular page and placed it carefully on the table.
A rough drawing of the crimson crystal.
Cracked.
The priest stared at it silently.
“…Where did you see this?”
“Beneath Underground.”
“You entered?”
“Only partially.”
The spy’s voice lowered instinctively.
“That place… didn’t feel abandoned.”
Another long silence settled over the room.
The priest eventually looked back upward.
“And the survivors?”
“They regained memory, hearing, sight… everything.”
“…Impossible.”
The spy clenched his jaw slightly.
“I witnessed it myself.”
Outside, thunder echoed faintly beyond the chapel walls.
The priest leaned back slowly in his chair.
“What caused the crystal to shatter?”
The spy hesitated.
Then finally answered.
“…I don’t know.”
That was the truth.
Because what he witnessed near the tunnel entrance made no sense.
Two survivors emerging from Underground beneath crimson light.
And somehow
the tunnel itself had fallen silent the moment they escaped.
The spy lowered his gaze carefully.
“There was… another individual present near the center of the incident.”
The priest’s fingers stopped moving immediately.
“…Describe them.”
“I couldn’t get close enough for details.”
The spy’s voice remained cautious.
“But they accompanied Norvale’s herbalist.”
Something about that answer clearly unsettled the priest.
“Anything abnormal?”
The spy hesitated again.
Then slowly spoke.
“They could understand the markings inside Underground.”
This time
the priest went completely still.
The silence afterward felt suffocating.
Even the candle flames seemed frozen now.
“That is not possible,” the priest said quietly.
“I heard it myself.”
“What exactly did they say?”
The spy closed his eyes briefly, recalling the words.
“…To abandon desire is to survive eternity.”
The chapel fell silent once more.
The priest’s gaze darkened immediately.
Not fear.
Something worse.
Recognition.
Very slowly, he stood from his chair.
“The language beneath…”
The words barely escaped above a whisper.
The spy frowned faintly.
“You recognize it?”
The priest did not answer immediately.
Instead he walked toward the chapel window overlooking the rain-covered city outside.
Far beyond the distant mountains
Norvale waited.
A place once believed lost forever.
“…Send word to the capital,” the priest finally said.
The spy stiffened.
“You’re informing the kingdom?”
“We no longer have a choice.”
The priest’s reflection stared coldly back at him through the rain-covered glass.
“If Underground truly awakened…”
His voice lowered.
“…then extinction may no longer be permanent.”
The spy’s eyes widened slightly.
“…You think vampires still exist?”
The priest slowly closed his eyes.
“No.”
A pause.
Then:
“I think something worse survived them.”
Thunder shook the chapel violently.
Deep beneath the cathedral floor
old bells began ringing on their own.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
The priest turned slowly toward the sound.
His expression had lost all calm now.
Because those bells had not rung in over two hundred years.
Not since the fall of the vampire kingdoms.
And somewhere far away
beneath the forests surrounding Norvale
something ancient had already begun waking up again.