Five hundred years ago, a great famine swept across Sethfar. Crops withered, the soil cracked, and the skies refused to give rain for five long years. The famine was so relentless that even the nobles had to eat sparingly, and the world sank into lawlessness; people would kill each other for stale bread.
Yet from that despair, a legend was born.
It is said a lone woman, clad in white, wandered into one of the barren regions. She planted a single tree in the middle of the wasteland. To the starving, the act seemed madness. But she tended the sapling each day, watering it not with rain but with her own blood.
Then, one day, a miracle occurred.
The tree began to grow—its roots spreading life into the desolate soil The tree bore big, crimson fruit. When the fruit ripened and fell to the ground, the miracle began. Wherever its shadow stretched, the land turned lush and fertile. Soon after, another miracle: rain began to fall where the tree stood, softening the cracked earth.
Word spread quickly, and the people, desperate for salvation, called her a messenger of God. They gathered before her, pleading:
"Please… please, I will do anything—just let me live in your land, Saint."
And each time, the woman would tell them, "Willingly drop a single drop of your blood upon the tree, and the land will accept you as part of itself.
With every soul that sought refuge by her side, the land flourished further. The tree's reach expanded, and the desolation gave way to harvest and rain.
Thus a region was born around that sacred tree, and from it rose the City of August.
The people of August planted their crops and feasted well. For the first time in years, they could eat without fear of starvation. Yet, whispers began to spread—people would sometimes vanish without a trace.
Still, the citizens did not care.
"It's God's chosen ones; they get to live in Heaven?" they would say. "The Saint told us."
For them, this was salvation.
Their ignorance came at another cost—one more insidious. The food that grew in August was unlike any other. It was rich, abundant, filling… Yet the more one ate, the more their emotions dulled. Joy, grief, love, even fear—all faded slowly, replaced by a hollow calm.
That too, they told themselves. Our hearts are at peace since we get to go to high heaven soon.
And so, for fifteen more years while famine consumed the surrounding lands, August thrived—prosperous, plentiful, and ever so silent.
Back in the present, Remy found himself face-to-face with Lucy. Rage burned in his chest, his grip tightening around the dagger hidden behind his hand. Its silvery blade caught the crimson glow of the sky, glittering like a shard of judgment.
"Lucy… What the hell did you do to Charles?" Remy demanded, his voice shaking with fury.
Lucy only giggled, her laughter soft and broken. "Hmmm… ahahahaha… nothing, truly. We were so in love. You know, he said he would give me anything—anything at all—if it meant I would love him back. And he did. He gave me everything…" Her words dripped with mockery, though her eyes shone with hunger.
"Come closer," she purred, her tone sweet, almost soothing. Her grin stretched unnaturally wide, like that of a starving beast. "Really, he'll feel better if you come to me. Don't you want to make the pain go away?"
"Yes… come closer… We can make the boo-boos go away… ahahaha," one of the men beside her added. He wore blue overalls and a straw hat, the look of a simple Southern farmer—but his voice was wrong, too eager, too sharp.
"We would like to... eat... Oh, I mean, meet you..." the other stammered, stepping forward with jerky, unnatural motions.
"Yes… haha… meat… meat…" the farmer repeated, his giggling high and warped, as though the word itself filled him with delight.
"What…" Remy whispered, his eyes wide, confusion etched deep into his face.
"What are you? I thought you were human… but… I can see your real faces now. What the hell are you?" he bellowed, planting himself firmly between Chad, Charles, and the advancing figures.
Their vision sharpened under the glow of their eyes, stripping away the disguise. The truth was horrifying. "What stood before them weren't men at all—they were moving cadavers... pale blue and rotting, their flesh peeling away in ribbons to reveal stark white bone beneath. Hollow eye sockets gaped like open wounds, their grins stretched wide, and even their smell had changed. The sweet rose scent that Lucy usually had was gone. Now, only the rank smell of rotting flesh lingered—the odor of food left unpreserved for months. The stench was so rank it caused Chad to gag. "Remy—on your left!" Chad's voice cracked with urgency.
Instinct flared. Remy pivoted just in time to avoid a sudden strike lunging out from the tall stalks of wheat. A figure stumbled forward, its head dangling grotesquely from its torso, swinging as though barely tethered by sinew. The stench of decay rolled off it in waves, its body clad in the tattered apron and clothes of a baker long dead.
"Thanks," Remy muttered, his voice tight as he swung his conjured sword, cleaving the baker clean through. The corpse crumpled, lifeless once more.
"So, you too can wield the Mystic, huh?" Lucy sneered as she stepped closer, her presence radiating malice.
"Ha… I wonder how you managed it. Surely God would never bless the likes of you. Well—it doesn't matter. You'll die here all the same. And your Mystic-filled blood…" Her grin stretched unnaturally wide. "…will make the land flourish."
The two men at her side lunged with a shriek, nails elongated into blades, teeth jagged and feral.
"Grrrrraaaahhh!" Their guttural cries pierced the air as they dove for Remy.
But before their claws could slash, their bodies jerked violently. Both fell screaming, pinned to the earth by two massive spectral blades that had pierced clean through them. Their wails echoed as they writhed, wings of pain unfurling in their agony.
"Was that you, Chad?" Remy shouted, whipping around—
Only to see Chad collapse, blood gushing from a fresh wound across his throat, spraying crimson into the rain.