The air inside the Orthodox Church in the Suceava region was heavy with incense and old sanctity.
Towering stone pillars rose toward a domed ceiling painted with fading icons of saints and angels, their gazes solemn and unyielding. Rows of candles illuminated the vast interior.
Despite its religious appearance, this was not merely a place of worship. The Orthodox church of Suceava was one of the largest Exorcist bases in Romania.
Hidden beneath the sacred architecture were armories, training halls, command chambers, and sealed vaults where cursed artifacts were stored under constant holy suppression. Exorcists from across Eastern Europe rotated through this place, especially its location that is close to the Vampire World.
Tonight, however, only one man occupied the training ground across the Church.
David Cerro stood at the center of the open space, sword in hand, his breathing steady as the last traces of holy energy faded from the blade. Sweat clung to his brow, and the faint glow of consecrated magic slowly dispersed into the air around him.
He lowered his weapon and exhaled.
"Tch… sloppy."
David Cerro sat on the edge, staring blankly at the stone floor of the training hall.
He was a man in his mid-thirties, an Italian exorcist with dark brown hair slicked back with sweat, his face framed by a rugged, unkempt beard and mustache that spoke of a week spent in restless recovery. He adjusted the white patient robes he wore, his fingers tracing the thick bandages wrapped around his torso and arms.
It had been seven days since the mission that bring him to this place in the first place.
He slowly flexed his right hand, then winced.
Bandages wrapped his palm and forearm, still faintly stained with dried blood. A week had passed since the mission to investigate one of the Vampire base in Transylvania.
A mission that he considered to be a failure.
"Tch."
David clicked his tongue and sat up, running his left hand through his slicked-back dark brown hair. His beard had grown unevenly during recovery, giving him a more rugged, hardened look than usual.
But the reason why he pissed is not because he failed to kill some of those filthy creatures.
He closed his eyes, and the memories surfaced whether he wanted them to or not.
Blood-soaked stone, in a forest near the countryside of Transylvania region. Vampires collapsing under his blade, their bodies reduced to ash by holy fire. He remembered the thrill the clarity. He had killed dozens that night.
Including the boy.
"What's that girl called him... Gasper," David muttered under his breath.
A Dhampir, barely more than a child. Weak. Hesitant. Unworthy of mercy. David remembered how the holy sword had pierced through his hearth.
And yet.
His jaw tightened.
The real prize had slipped through his fingers.
The girl herself. The blonde girl who was with that boy, Gasper.
He could still see it clearly. The golden chalice cradled in her hands, glowing like a fragment of heaven itself. The moment he saw it, his blood had run cold.
A Sacred Gear.
No.
"The Holy Grail," David whispered. "The Sephiroth Graal. The Cup of Blood."
He could still see the radiance of that golden chalice reflecting in her terrified eyes. The Sephiroth Graal. The Cup of Blood. It was one of the thirteen Longinus that said to capable of rewriting the laws of life and death. David's grip tightened on his bandaged hand until the stitches pulled. If he had secured that artifact, his name would have been etched into history alongside legends like Vasco Estrada.
He would have been the hero the Church needed. Instead, the girl had vanished into the mist, whisked away by Tepes reinforcements while he was buried under a tide of screeching bats and feral fangs.
He had barely made it back to the base, dragging his broken body through the Romanian wilderness.
The present moment pulled him back as the evening sun dipped below the Carpathian peaks, casting long jagged shadows across the training ground.
It was nearly midnight. David stood up, his muscles protesting with every movement. He needed to clear his head.
He didn't like this place. He found the Orthodox traditions stifling and the local exorcists too set in their ways, but it was a necessary waypoint as he needed a place to rest and heal his wound before his return to the Vatican.
As David crossed the small creek that separated the outer grounds from the inner compound, an uneasy feeling settled in his chest.
Too quiet.
Usually, the midnight vigils would be marked by the low hum of chanting or the rhythmic footsteps of sentries. Tonight, there was nothing.
He stopped at the gate and scanned the area. Torches still burned along the paths, their flames steady, untouched by wind. Everything looked normal.
And that was the problem.
"Tch. Get a grip," he muttered to himself. "You're imagining things."
David's hand moved instinctively to the hilt of the sword at his waist. He walked down a narrow stone alleyway leading toward the residential wing, his eyes darting between the archways.
"Who's there?" he demanded, his voice echoing hollowly against the cold walls.
There was no verbal answer, only a sudden shift in the darkness. David lunged forward, swinging his blade in a wide arc at a presence he felt rather than saw, but the steel met only thin air.
"Show yourself!" He yelled.
The silhouette he had targeted vanished as if it were made of smoke.
Before he could reset his stance, the shadows beneath his feet boiled. A hand made of solidified darkness erupted from the ground, lashing around his waist and pinning his arms to his sides with crushing force.
"Who are you? Show yourselves!" David screamed, struggling against the grip of the darkness.
Figures began to step out from the lightless corners of the alley. They were pale, their eyes glowing with a predatory crimson light that pierced the gloom. They wore elegant, high-collared black coats that billowed around them like the wings of giant bats. Dozens of them materialized, blocking both ends of the alleyway.
"Vampires!" David shouted. He forced his hand free just enough to manifest a sphere of concentrated holy light.
"Burn you filth!"
He launched the ball of magic directly at the lead vampire's chest. It was a spell designed to vaporize creatures of the darkness like them on contact. The light hit the vampire squarely, illuminating the alley in a brilliant white flash.
David waited for the screams of agony, for the smell of scorching flesh.
But as the light faded, the vampire stood perfectly still. His coat unmarred, a bored expression on his face. He brushed a stray speck of dust from his sleeve.
David's heart plummeted.
"How?"
Vampires were creatures of darkness. Holy magic should have been a death sentence to them. Yet the scene before him betrayed that belief.
One of the vampire stepped forward, his boots clicking on the cobblestones.
"What do you want?" David snarled, fear finally beginning to seep through his bravado. "You are in the heart of an exorcist base! You think you can walk out of here alive? There are hundreds of us!"
The lead vampire let out a soft, melodic laugh that sent chills down David's spine. He gestured to the shadows behind him. Two other vampires stepped forward, carrying a heavy burlap sack. With a casual flick of their wrists, they emptied the contents at David's feet.
David's breath hitched. Round objects thudded and rolled across the stone. He stared down into the lifeless, wide-eyed faces of the base commanders and the priest he had shared a meal with this last few days. The heads were jaggedly severed, the stone beneath them quickly turning dark with cooling blood.
"This place has been thouroughly cleaned," the vampire said.
"You... you slaughtered everyone?" David stammered. 'If his words were true...' He thought, the scale of the massacre was unfathomable. Hundreds of trained warriors, dead in a single silent night without a single alarm being raised.
"The Church... Heaven itself will not be silent! You call destruction upon yourself!"
The vampire didn't seem to care. He tilted his head, watching David's trembling knees with the curiosity of a child looking at an insect.
"You want to kill me then? Do it!" David shouted, his voice cracking.
"Oh no, no," the vampire replied in a playful tone. "That is not for us to decide."
Before David could react, two spears of solidified darkness shot out from the ground, piercing through his feet and anchoring him to the earth. He let out a strangled cry of agony, falling to his knees as the shadows climbed up his legs like freezing vines.
The lead vampire leaned in close, his cold breath smelling of ancient dust and iron.
"The Tepes send their regards."
And darkness engulfed David's vision.
That night, the silence that fell over the Suceava region would be recorded in human history as a mysterious tragedy known as the Slaughter of Suceava. But to the supernatural world, it was just the beginning.
***
After spending a couple days meticulously searching every corner of the Emerald City to ensure Glenda truly wasn't going to return anytime soon, Jay and Lavinia decided to go to Romania. The letter was their only lead.
With the familiar coordinate of his home country, and superb spatial magic, the two of them emerged in the heart of Bucharest with just a flicker of purple ember.
Cold autumn air greeted them instantly.
Coming back to Romania was a jarring collision of emotions. The biting wind carried a chilling, familiar scent that felt both like a agonizing and homecoming. Jay adjusted his long black coat, his fingers brushing against the silk of his burgundy tie. He looked out at the grey skyline, his mind drifting to the names he carried like anchors.
'I should visit them later. Sister Andrea… Elena… Mihea… Andrei… Iacob… Ilie… Filip.' He thought. The names lingered in his mind longer than he expected.
He had survived, but the guilt of his survival remained.
Jay and Lavinia then found a quiet restaurant in the city center to gather their bearings. Seated side by side at a small table overlooking the bustling, fog-thickened roads of Bucharest, they ordered a traditional spread of Mezeluri, some sort of cured meat, an egg, cheese, and some veggies.
Jay picked at the cured meats and cheeses, sipping a steaming cup of black tea to ward off the autumnal chill that had firmly set in. Lavinia sat beside him, looking elegant in a dark brown cashmere coat and a black turtleneck, her glasses perched on the bridge of her nose as she studied a map of the Transylvania region.
"Where exactly is this Vampire World?" Jay asked, his voice low enough to be drowned out by the clatter of silverware. "I grew up here, but I never saw these kind of civilization."
"They live inside the cracks of the human world," Lavinia explained, her gaze shifting to the busy street. "They inhabit the 'Darkness.' Through powerful bounded fields magic, creating a pocket dimensions. Both the Tepes and Carmilla factions have carved out territories that overlap with our own but remain invisible to the normal human eye, i don't know exactly either but i've heard from Oshishou-sama that they usually live in the mountains or forests."
"That's the war the latter talking about... between those two."
She leaned in closer, her expression turning academic.
"The split happened several hundred years ago. It was a schism over blood purity. One side believed a male true ancestor should lead to retain their lineage, while the other insisted on a female true ancestor. This birthed the Tepes Faction which is the male-dominated side and the Carmilla Faction, which is female-led. They've maintained a cold, hateful status quo for centuries."
"And the balance tipped...," Jay noted.
"Because of the Graal," Lavinia whispered. "A Longinus appearing within their territory would tip the balance instantly. Since Sacred Gears are typically born from humans, the wielder is likely a Dhampir or a half-vampire. They are often treated as outcasts or slaves by pure-bloods, but a Dhampir with the Sephiroth Graal... they would become the most valuable pawn to them."
It was an assumption, but a logical one. The letter hadn't specified who held the cup, only that it had manifested. But a War, that's could only mean several things.
As they finished their meal, Jay stepped up to the counter to pay. A stack of morning newspapers caught his eye, the headlines printed in bold, jagged Romanian script. He felt a prickle of unease and bought a copy.
As he opened it, his eyebrows shot up.
Lavinia leaned over his shoulder, her breath hitching. "No... that can't be."
The headline bold.
THE SLAUGHTER OF SUCEAVA.
The report was grim. Last night, an Orthodox Church used as a community center had been the site of an inexplicable massacre. Around five hundred people, clergy and civilians alike had been found dead. To the human public, it was a senseless act of mass murder. To Jay and Lavinia, the timing was too perfect to be a coincidence.
They shared a silent nod and left the restaurant. In a blur of spatial displacement, they vanished from the alleyway and reappeared on the outskirts of Suceava.
It was a scene. Police tape cordoned off the scorched stone of the church, and a massive crowd of mourners and onlookers pressed against the barricades. Jay and Lavinia stood at the back of the throng, their eyes scanning the structure. Jay was already calculating the coordinates to slip past the police and teleported inside.
But, before he could activate his power, a cheery melodic voice cut through the sound of the weeping crowd.
"Yo! Isn't that you, Illya-san? I didn't think you'd be assigned to this task too. Wow, you've grown so fast! You're actually taller than me now."
Jay froze. He turned his head slowly to the side, his expression flattening into a mask of indifference. Lavinia turned as well, her eyes widening at the rare sound of someone using Jay's middle name.
Two people stood there. One was a striking woman in her late twenties with piercing blue eyes and an air of calm authority. Beside her stood a handsome young man with messy blond hair and vibrant green eyes, wearing the distinct, high-collared attire of a high-ranking Church exorcist.
He was smiling as if he had just run into an old friend at a cafe, rather than at the site of a mass grave.
"You don't remember? We met in Verona. I'm Dulio."
Recognition flickered in Jay's eyes.
He remembered him.
But Jay felt a phantom itch of irritation, he didn't like this man.