“Your affection! Your affection! Your affection!” A voice echoed in paradise, flowers bloomed. Animals ate as did Saraline as she laid on the elegant green grass. Beautiful music played in her ears before—

  A loud footstep.

  A footstep onto the wood broke Saraline’s vision, she snapped out of it as she stared forward at Alucard who was walking forward.

  Beside her was both Dara and Psylaiso— both on each side however looking different, their eyes had a purple hue covering their pupils.

  “What the hell!” She outbursted, breaking the other two out of the trance as they stood firm, causing the Fifth Slavi to turn around.

  “We’re here, but how’d you break out?” Alucard slowly turned around, a pale-white blindfold covered his face. With the pattern of a bloody pentagram dripping blood in the centre. His smooth but sinister voice echoed in a world that silenced it usually.

  “Break out? Did you put us under some illusion!” Dara squeaked before looking past the man, staring forward at the large sculpture ahead of them.

  A soaring tall treasure, the stained glass windows were marked with sigils and dried blood. Blood that filled the fog with a scent of rotten— however the building looked untouched, untainted. It stood firm and high with pointed arches. Long, towering spires which were formed in a hexagonal arrangement. It stood up on a dark black podium— ascending stairs leading into the charcoal rib-vaults inside. Pale-black flying buttresses however the building pulsated. As if it was warping reality further and further— bats swarming the spires.

  “Lord Medea is dying to invite you, before of course Thidos’s bunch arrive.” Alucard fixed his blindfold.

  “How’d you just do that? How’d you make us appear here— isn’t Medea’s holyspot alwasys an infinite distance away! We had to run for that!” Dara replied

  “I hate my dropping my trap-card but it’s my power. I warp cognitions, now you may be asking and saying ‘What the hell is this guy speaking about?’. I’m not a dumbass so I kind of don’t wanna elaborate too much.”

  “Let’s go in, there’s no point speaking with this guy.” Psylaiso lowered her eyes, “No point speaking with that Medea cunt away. Why are we here again?” She faced away from the Cathedral and Alucard, looking with a determined expression at the other two.

  “What do you mean? We need Me— wait.” Dara’s gaze fluttered.

  “You know exactly what I mean, not so long ago we came here and wasted our time with this bastard. Why are we doing the same thing again? Does he seriously believe we’ll partake in the war just because Floria was destroyed— we are Cassettes damn it! What good does leaving one oppressive world do if we go straight to the next!”

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “Oppressive is a harsh word, our realm is so much more civilised. Free education, healthcare— hell Medea cares so much about his people he has even made surveys just for people who don’t want their homes changed when he warps reality. He remembers everyone’s names and loves each Medean as his own— for we are!” Alucard snickered.

  “‘We are?’” Saraline butted in Alucard’s praise, “For what I remember, you are just some creature that was restored sentience.”

  “I never truly had a name but I was always sentient, just locked up by that bastard Thidos with no way of talking! I hate him! But I hate Gabriel Khan more— while I was trapped in my own head, being called a devil by my own self. That bastard paraded me around on his fucking hip like I was a prop! A toy! I am Alucard! Not a toy!”

  “You speak alot.” Dara wagged her finger at the Slavi, “I would love to here more from you Alucard but I kind of want to get— WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?”

  The girl shrieked as she pointed forward to the interior.

  The swarm of bats flied inside, as a painting began to walk out. Sentient, two feet— stubby. Walking out of the rib-vaults. The canvas was a painting of a pale figure, standing on a bridge. Clutching his face with a mortified expression whilst the turbulent skies bellowed, resembling a sea of blood.

  “Why is he here?” Alucard’s fangs gnarled as the painting awkwardly walked down the stairs. Moving past him and wiggling left in front of the girls.

  “That is not an Invalian— I refuse to believe any Invalian can look like that…” Psylaiso mummured to herself, her eyes darting from the painting to Dara then back to the painting.

  “Invalians are just ‘supernatural creatures’— school said they were that not me! I am not a racist, but uhm what the fuck is that tour-guide?” Saraline recoiled in disgust as her hand itched— pointing at the painting.

  “Ostra has a severely low crime rate but that’s more because we aren’t like Floria. You see Floria’s laws regarding the typical person was similar to Earth but here in Ostra it is significantly more lenient but in order for people not to take the piss.

  We have stricter punishments. Behold, Kehlan Issac, a Medean that decided it’d be good and righteous if he tried to not only kill a bunch of other Medeans unlawfully but also hurt a bunch of people sexually.

  Lowest of the low.”

  “Righteous? What do you mean by unlawfully?” Dara crept further and further behind the two girls to Alucard’s pleasure.

  “We have extremely lenient laws here since we abide by hedonism. Pleasure mostly for yourself but also it can include others, his form of hedonism was killing and hurting children. He went for the group that God loves the most.

  Innocent and vulnerable orphans.”

  The painting darted toward Dara, attempting to smudge along her legs but she punted it away.

  “What’s he doing showing us this? Does he seriously think it’ll change our minds? One cruel gesture doesn’t erase the past— as you said.

  ‘The Past never Dies.’” Dara put her hands on her chest, flapping her lab coat as she sneered at Alucard.

  “I guess he’s done it to show he’s not an ‘Oppressive’ God but instead someone with a strict moral compass, at times of course. The Lord is favourable of drugs, murder and sex but leave children out of it.”

  “What about Ivory? He hit on Dara, two different age brackets.” Saraline rolled her eyes.

  “Saying that could cost him his soul.” Alucard leaned forward, “If this truly did happen, Ivory would regret it. He is a womaniser but he isn’t stupid, he must’ve not known. Sorry for the uncomfortability he caused you three within your first travel and stay.”

  The painting fell over on the floor, twitching before pausing in it’s movements.

  “Guess it’s dead now.” Alucard walked over to the painting, “Shame it had to be one of my favourite artworks representing such heinous scum.”

  “So you even have a moral compass?” Dara chuckled softly.

  “I don’t, I couldn’t care less for his crimes but he really ruined ‘The Scream’. An Old World classic— just to be a weird person. Makes me annoyed!” Alucard roared as he stomped on the painting, pushing it into the wood.

  “As I said before…” Psylaiso was about to speak but Saraline touched the slime’s chest.

  “It’s alright ‘Laiso. If Medea wishes to win the war and become the true ‘God’, he’d need support from us.” Saraline gave Psylaiso a smile, which caused both the blush.

  “We’ll hear from the man himself.”