"It's coming!"
Silas shouted as he jolted awake from the sofa bed.
His tone was panicked and uneasy, his loud voice echoing through the quiet lounge. The few people who had been sleeping were all startled awake by him.
Across from him, Royale lowered her newspaper and looked at him calmly.
"Having a nightmare?"
She asked flatly.
On the other beds, Klein woke up, and Cecilia also sat up groggily, rubbing her eyes.
Silas's heart pounded violently against his ribs, his breathing rapid. He looked around in confusion.
The people who had seemingly disappeared were actually in the lounge the whole time, and there were no eerie sounds in the hallway either.
Was it a dream?
It seemed like a dream.
Silas instinctively began to relax, but then a surge of anxiety suddenly flooded back into his heart.
No!
Something's wrong!
A sense of impending danger kept stimulating his nerves, like watching a steel needle suspended right in front of his eyes, slowly inching closer, about to pierce into his skull.
Though it hadn't struck yet, an extremely uncomfortable phantom pain was already forming between his brows.
"It's not a nightmare! There really is danger!"
Silas shouted at Royale. "I don't know how to describe it, but... but something is coming!"
He explained in pale, feeble terms, flailing his arms uselessly. He looked completely unconvincing.
At first, Silas thought Royale would think he was having a fit. But to his surprise, she merely frowned, then swiftly stood up and, in one smooth motion, drew her revolver from the holster at her waist.
"Which direction?"
She asked. "Which direction do you sense something wrong?"
Which direction?
Silas froze for a moment, unable to answer.
He only instinctively sensed danger, but as for what specifically it was and where it was coming from, he couldn't say.
"Did you see any images? Tell me, I can try to divine it." Klein also stood up and said seriously.
"Who are you?! Don't come any closer! Ahh!"
Just then, a girl's scream came from outside the lounge.
"Rozanne!"
Royale's expression changed slightly.
She quickly ran toward the lounge door while not forgetting to instruct Silas, "Protect your sister and hide here! Klein, come with me!"
Before Silas could respond, she charged out with her gun raised.
Silas gave a sharp jolt and hurriedly pulled Cecilia to find a place to crouch down.
Klein gripped his revolver and rushed out of the lounge right behind Royale.
Outside, Rozanne was still screaming, which inevitably made him feel anxious.
After all, there were only two Nighthawks present at the moment, one of whom was himself, a rookie.
If the enemy was too strong, he worried the situation could turn bad.
Royale, who was running ahead, had already passed the partition. She held her gun with both hands, raised horizontally, aiming in a certain direction.
"Stop! Don't move!"
This elegant, aloof lady let out a loud, undignified roar.
Klein ran past the partition.
He held up his revolver, the muzzle following Royale's direction, and the situation in the hall immediately came into view. Rozanne was sitting collapsed on the floor, uninjured, but looking extremely frightened.
Her legs scraped against the floor as she desperately tried to scoot her body backward.
In front of her stood the intruder.
When he clearly saw who it was, Klein couldn't help but be shocked.
"Hanass!"
He exclaimed.
"That's Hanass? The captain and the others didn't catch him? I said don't move! Move again and I'll shoot!"
Royale said. The first half was questioning Klein, the latter half warning the uninvited intruder.
"I don't know..."
Klein was extremely surprised, not just because he saw Hanass, but because of his current state.
Dark circles under his eyes, thick and coarse brown hair, a serious and anxious middle-aged man.
That was Klein's original impression of Hanass. But the Hanass before his eyes, apart from his unchanged appearance, had undergone a complete transformation in overall temperament.
His face was filled with an unprecedented intoxicated smile, as if immersed in supreme bliss.
His eyes were unfocused. Despite being held at gunpoint, he didn't even glance their way. Instead, he stared in a direction where nothing existed, smiling and muttering to himself.
Even more terrifying was that his entire body was covered in fresh blood, as if he'd just walked through a rain of blood before entering. On his face, his hands, and the black classical robe he wore, bright red blood was constantly dripping.
Looking at this unnatural Hanass, Klein felt a chill run down his spine.
Just then, he heard Hanass speak.
"The Lord guided me here."
His tone was dreamy.
Something under his robe was bulging and squirming, as if hiding some living thing. "He was right. The Lord's presence is here... my salvation is here... Praise the Lord, praise the Lord!"
Hanass's expression grew increasingly fervent.
He ignored Royale's repeated warnings and stepped toward the partition. Behind the partition, in the hallway, was where Silas and the others were hiding.
Royale bit her lip.
"Rozanne, get up and run inside! Klein, you shoot with me, understand?!"
She shouted.
Klein immediately responded.
Rozanne also recovered from her shock and got up to run past the partition.
Seeing Hanass approach step by step, Royale pulled the trigger without hesitation, and Klein fired as well.
"Bang bang bang!"
Gunshots and smoke immediately filled the hall of Blackthorn Security Company. Hanass stopped walking. His body swayed back and forth as if hammered.
He even took a shot to the face, the bullet cunningly entering his eye socket as red and white matter splattered out.
Seeing a familiar face become like this, Klein couldn't help but feel nauseated. He instinctively stopped shooting.
"Don't stop!"
But Royale shouted.
But he was shot in the head...
Klein thought, and then he saw that despite his gunshot wounds, Hanass hadn't fallen!
Amid a series of sticky, dense, nauseating sounds, bright red tumors squirmed and grew from Hanass's wounds.
Even the bullet lodged in his eye socket was pushed out by the tumors. The still-hot metal bullet head sizzled as it burned Hanass's flesh, then clinked and clattered to the floor.
Under their shocked gazes, Hanass grinned at them, revealing a sinister smile.
"Will you try to stop me?"
With a tearing sound, he reached his hand into the overgrown eye socket, ripped the tumor off and crushed it, then raised his arm...
"Watch out!"
Klein suddenly felt his body lighten, then involuntarily shifted to the right.
It was Royale pulling him away from his original position. He focused his eyes and saw that where he'd just been standing was now covered with splattered flesh and blood.
Those disgusting things were corroding the floor and partition, sending up smoke with a sizzling sound!
Holy...
Klein's scalp tingled. Hanass had already mutated. He wasn't afraid of pistols, and his flesh could corrode things.
How were they supposed to deal with him now?
Besides his revolver, he still had one Sleep Charm left in his pocket.
Though there were also two sealed artifacts stored in the captain's office behind them, if he could break away to retrieve them... No, those two sealed artifacts had no offensive capability.
They could only be used to detect whether a target was harmful. Was there any other way...
Klein's brain raced as he continuously dodged the flesh and blood Hanass threw at them, occasionally firing back with his pistol.
The hall quickly descended into chaos, destroyed beyond recognition.
Should I just use the power above the gray fog...
The situation was becoming somewhat tense. For an instant, Klein even had that thought.
Fortunately, Royale called out to him, "Klein! I need to switch to demon-hunting bullets. Can you stall him for a few seconds?"
"Yes!"
Klein's eyes lit up when he heard this. Of course! Right now, their revolvers were loaded with ordinary bullets.
If they switched to demon-hunting bullets designed to target evil, maybe they'd work!
So he quickly pulled out the Sleep Charm from his pocket.
It was a silver piece the size of a baby's palm, covered with incantations in Hermes, along with various symbols and mystic numbers.
Just holding it in his hand, he could feel the calm, peaceful power emanating from it.
"Crimson!"
Klein shouted in ancient Hermes, channeling his spirituality into the charm, then swung his arm and threw the charm toward Hanass.
"Bang!"
The silver piece exploded in a mass of dark red flames, enveloping Hanass's head.
His body swayed, and that twisted smile seemingly fixed on his face rapidly faded as his eyelids couldn't help but droop.
It's working!
Royale seized the opportunity to empty the cylinder and load silver bullets engraved with demon-banishing patterns and the holy symbol of the Evernight Goddess into her revolver.
She whispered the Goddess's prayer in a low voice.
The quiet, hidden power of the night silently manifested, forming a resonance between her body and the revolver.
Prayer complete, Royale's eyes were serene, the revolver's muzzle aimed at the still-sleeping Hanass.